Flowers from Blood
by C.J.Ellison
Summary: Two weeks after the arrest of Morgan Fey, Phoenix lets Maya choose their next client- a girl accused of murdering her older sister. The scenario alone is eerily familiar, but the entire case starts dredging up fragments of the past. Slowly, the trial unravels the secrets of an aristocratic family, and Franziska von Karma's mysterious personal connection to it all. [Legacies Part I]
1. Overture: Taste Like Summer

_accismus : (noun) the feigned disinterest or refusal of something earnestly desired; can be demonstrative of modesty, coyness, or irony_

* * *

Overture  
_Taste Like Summer_

.{*}.

_July 18, 2012, 01:12AM  
_ _Eurydice Hall  
_ _Estate Grounds_

"_What do you believe in?"_

_Her neck ached, thrown back and craned at an awkward angle to stare directly up at the stars, the sight rendered sharp and innumerable by cloudless climes. The wide marble brim of the fountain basin was hard underneath her, the still waters a ripple of liquid ice around her ankles, spouts stoppered and silent for the night. She was lost in the void, adrift, comfortably numb- or, more likely, that was just the blood pooling at the back of her skull, making her lightheaded. Her world tipped upside-down. She could taste constellations underneath her tongue, sparkling like dewdrops in a spiderweb- could have swayed off her seat, and toppled over into the oceanic dark, falling into nothing, stars nicking her skin like chips of glass as she sank._

_A faint sweetness lingered in the cold air; molten sugar from the confectionary at the gala clinging to their clothes, the lighter fragrance of the gardens in heady, full-bodied bloom, the body-warmed notes of vanilla in his cologne._

_She heard him turn- fabric shifting, water swirling- to look at her._

"_Where did that come from?"_

"_My mind." Her tone was innocence, mild as milk, the words underneath dry enough to desiccate. She pointed her toes like a dancer, dragging them through the fountain. "It occurs to me that I've never asked. It feels like I should."_

_He exhaled. It was the height of summer, but the air was so crystalline-cold- heat evaporating into the clear skies with the sunset- that his breath froze, briefly, into an opaque ephemeral plume, before melting like spun sugar into water._

"_Truth, evidence, logic." He had taken her seriously, to no surprise. He always assumed that there was a point to the things she said, and she liked him for it, at least when it wasn't an inconvenience. "Empirically verifiable things. Facts. Figures." He paused. "What else am I supposed to believe in?"_

_Her head listed to one side, thoughts sloshing around in her skull like water in a goldfish bowl. She was thinking too little, and too much. Another irritating, liberating symptom of talking to him._

"_I really hate that about you." She hadn't exactly given her mouth permission to speak. "You're so rigid. Your thinking is completely binary, all straight lines and right angles- it misses so much nuance. There's never any room for grey with you. It makes me want to strangle you." _

_She could feel his tension, thick as aged honey in the air._

"_Hm. Well, I'm sorry if it offends you."_

_His lips were pressed together, mouth set concrete-hard as his gaze- she could tell without even looking._

_She smiled. He was terribly obvious- and so endearingly _sensitive_ sometimes, no matter how cold he preferred to seem._

_She set out to soothe and distract the hurt; intentional or incidental, she could never let the sting of her barbs, linger for long. It was a weakness, but not a fatal one._

"_What do you hate about me?"_

"_Excuse me?"_

"_There must be something," she said, her tone taking on a teasing note. "I have a lot of unpleasant qualities to choose from."_

"_Wh-what? No you don't-"_

"_No? Casually insulting someone without provocation doesn't count?"_

"_You weren't insulting me." He paused, selecting the right words. "You were- expressing an opinion. An unpleasant one, granted, but an honest one, and I'd still prefer that over any attempt at hollow-"_

"_You still haven't given me an answer."_

_He paused, again, and she knew she'd pierced through him in the way that he didn't seem to mind- even seemed to appreciate. She closed her eyes and listened to the trickle of water as he kicked up ripples that broke against her submerged ankles._

"_You see everything clearly except for yourself. You refuse to even look, I think. Perhaps because you're afraid you might hate what you find. Or maybe the contrary. I'm not certain." He sighed quietly, muted frustration and exasperation singeing the edges. "And you make high-handed assumptions about how people should act towards you, or think about you. And if anyone thinks otherwise, they're automatically idiots. Just because _you_ dislike yourself doesn't mean other people do. Or that they _should_."_

_She hummed, the sound of laughter running in the vibrations at the back of her throat, like a vein of gold. It was a penetrating critique, merciless in its execution, damning in its staging._

_She adored him._

"_You're so arrogant. Have you considered that maybe it's _your_ perspective of me that's skewed?"_

_He turned his head to consider her, candid and smooth as steel._

"_No."_

_Her ribs shuddered with supressed laughter._

"_Now that we're done insulting each other," he continued, the subtle-unfurling curl of his mouth permeated his voice, rare warmth clothed in wry amusement, "maybe we can switch to saying something positive?"_

"_Oh, fishing for compliments? I always suspected you were a narcissist."_

"_What- no! Don't be ridiculous! That is not what I intended at all, I only-"_

_Finally, she couldn't help bursting into laughter, clear and musical as it echoed out._

"_I was _teasing_-! You're far too easy." She flexed her ankle in the water, stirring up a gentle current, curling her toes up and letting the droplets trickle off the bridge of her foot. "You're completely, unapologetically yourself. Cold- like dawn in springtime- bright and clear and _cold_, so much that it hurts, that it's physically painful to draw breath around you sometimes. You're so honest that it's almost _unbearable_. And an idealist, with a cynic's veneer. Those are my favourite things about you, I think."_

_He was silent, for a long moment._

"_I'm not sure how to feel about that."_

"_You don't have to feel anything."_

_She had never expected him to understand what she was saying. She had also never intended for him to understand, either, which was a little unfair._

_She was occupying her mental bandwidth by tracing out the constellation Cygnus, linking the stars through the beacon of Deneb, when he spoke again._

"_What do _you_ believe in?"_

_Bitterness dripped from between the seams of her lips._

"_Nothing. Absolutely nothing."_

"_Nothing?" He sounded disbelieving._

"_I don't believe in anything, or anyone."_

"_No one?" He pressed, like a thumb against a fresh bruise. She wanted to buckle underneath it, but she couldn't think of anything she had left to offer him._

_Her mouth twisted into the parody of a smile._

Almost you_, she wanted to say. _Almost, but not quite.

"_No. Sorry."_

_She meant it._

"_And yet," he said, words moving with the unhurried inevitability of the clockwork of the stars above them, "you're still here. Still kind. Still moral. Principled. Even though you have no reason to be- if you really _do_ believe in nothing."_

_The corner of her mouth kicked up, sardonic._

_He was calling her a liar. He was calling her a good person._

"_Oh, please," she breathed out, smooth as honey, undeniably fond despite herself. "What would you know?"_

* * *

_April 8, 2013, 6:20AM  
_ _Eurydice Hall  
_ _Estate Grounds_

The air on the grounds was bracing, a shock of cold on bare skin that was expecting the gentle warmth of a burgeoning spring. It was like slipping into the waters of a cool lake; the world had not yet thawed, at least where mornings were concerned. The skies had been clear overnight, and the vast lawns glimmered with dew beneath the blush of dawn, breaking above the crown of the distant forest treeline like splintered bone- white, tarnished with smudges of red.

She loved this place, despite everything. It had hidden her, nurtured her, bolstered her, indulged her, protected her, granted her admittance to its deepest recesses and lost secrets, let her wander in its hallowed halls and lofty chambers. As best it could, it had loved her, its ghosts and history wrapping around her like fine layers of dust-silver gossamer, light as air but keeping her warm.

She would likely never see it again, because of what she was going to do. It would break her heart.

Barefoot, her steps darkened the grass, brushing the shimmering damp from the blades, chilling her. The axe was an anchor, worn-smooth wooden handle heavy in her palm, flat of the blade cold against her calf, its heft comforting. The edge had been freshly sharpened- a keen ripple of silver shaved away from the oxidised surface, the scent of fresh metal on her fingers.

By this hour, the tide of rising light would be spilling across the eastern façade of the house, setting the pale grey and honeycomb-gold limestone aglow; sunshine would be glinting in the gold leaf, catching in the carvings and elaborate architraves and fluting, sparking arrays of tall leaded windows like the facets of gemstones. She couldn't turn to look.

She halted in front of a lone tree- slender and strong, its branches garlanded with sprays of adipose-white blossoms, each daubed incarnadine at their centre and bleeding a watercolour tint of pink.

She adjusted her stance, gripping the axe with both hands, spaced securely apart.

The weight of it would do most of the work. All she had to do was aim, swing, and let momentum do the rest.

The first strike bought down a shower of cerise-lipped petals, like silk rain. The second bit deep enough to feel in her teeth. The third spat splinters.

When gravity and sharpened metal overcame living wood, the tears were cold on her face, and her mouth ached with the shape of a vicious, pyrrhic victory.

Inside, she brewed tea. Her palms were raw and close to bleeding with friction heat, and there was still morning dew and a few stray petals on her skin. She propped the axe against her chair, sipped her rose tea, and waited.

The ensuing storm was so predictable, and yet so much worse than usual.

"_What did you do?!_"

Saccharine as sugar-posy, shrieking with enough bleach-white rage to wake the dead, _she_ didn't wait for an answer. _She_ never did. The onslaught crashed over her with barely a pause for breath, and she sat quietly, braced against the torrent.

The moment that she set her empty teacup aside and stood, a hand caught her across the cheek. Silence filled the aftermath, the sound of _her_ seething breaths crackling through the dead air like static.

"Did it hurt?"

_She_ choked on incredulity. "_What?!_"

"Your hand, when you slapped me." She worked her jaw slightly, dispelling the needle-point sting. "Did it hurt? It felt like it might."

"What do _you_ care about hurting me? Why did you _do_ that?! Why would you-"

"Did it hurt," she continued blandly- _she_ wouldn't appreciate the interruption, but it was beginning to feel as though they had long since passed that line, "when you cut off pieces of yourself to get his approval? When you carved yourself up, throwing away the pieces he didn't like? There was that old programme you used to watch reruns of, every Saturday afternoon- the musical dessert show. One day, you just stopped. Do you ever miss it?"

_Her_ mouth tightened, unpleasantly, lips blanching, and then there were hands on her shoulders, gripping firm, disciplining, smothering- pressing down, reminding her of her place.

They were the same height, she realised.

"I," _she_ said, "have made certain _sacrifices_, as _required_ by my position. _He_ taught me that, and _you_-"

"Is there anything left of you, behind the title? Did he even let you be a _person_? Or are you just your_ position_?"

"_He_-"

"Was a monster," she stated. "He scraped everything out of you and left a breathing shell behind, and you can't even see it. Would you like to know what he was really like?"

And then she was talking- churning out facts and events like inked paper fresh from the printer, still warm to the touch, sheaf after sheaf- and couldn't stop, disconnected. The truth tumbled out of her, unflinching.

Until she felt herself being shoved, hard, disgust and rage cutting in her with the blunt cut of fingernails. The small of her back hit the edge of the table, chairs shifting, tea service rattling.

The axe clattered to her feet.

"_Shut up! _Stop _lying_, you- you _spoiled_, _resentful, jealous _little_\- fantasist_! You're _disgusting_-"

She closed her eyes, impassive. The place where she should have felt disappointment simply felt slaked.

_She_ was still shouting, insults and accusations punched from _her_ lungs and spat into the air, more caustic than usual, gnawing at her.

The axe was at her feet. She could feel the handle against the length of her bare foot.

She felt _her_ hand wrap into her hair, and _fist_, wrenching at the roots as though _she_ intended to scalp her- before being thrown aside in contempt, catching herself on the table with one hand. She kept her eyes closed.

The axe was still at her feet.

_Her_ hysteria was rising to fever-pitch, self-righteous and mired with self-serving lies and blind assumptions and _the axe was still at her feet_-

"You don't deserve the air in your lungs! You're a- a _disease_ on this family, you always have been! My ancestors would be _ashamed_ of you, and of everything you are, you don't deserve to have their blood in your veins, you _parasitic_-"

Her eyes snapped open.

She snatched up the axe, and swung.

* * *

_August 15, 2016, 12:57PM  
_ _Downtown Los Angeles  
Skyscraper Rooftop_

Californian summers were ruthless. Sun-burnished heat gripped the city by the throat, crushing and vivid as fever-dream delirium. The height of midday was a bullet to the brain, a butter knife to the retina, blunt and brutal; the air thick was enough to cut a slice and plate it up, dense and unsatisfied as empty calories and angry rock songs. Curving concave above the city, the vault of the skies was unbearably vibrant- a deep, fantasy shade of saturated blue. The glossy steel and glass cityscape gleamed as though vitrified, shadows deepened to the colour of the ocean at night, the pale stone and concrete of the sidewalks brightened to blinding.

It was a beautiful day to die.

Not exactly a beautiful day for killing, however.

Clicking the last components into place, she snapped the collapsible rifle stand open- the dark metal mercifully cool from being sealed in the confines of its case- and settled into position on the brink of the roof. She ignored the steady irradiation of her flesh under the glare of the high sun, sweat gathering in the creases of her skin, hands swiped clean.

The sight of the scope swung.

The District Courthouse was an impressive building. Constructed from cloud-grey granite and virginal marble, the edifice of neoclassical masonry and gothic stained-glass presided over the boulevard- a temple of secular purpose. At the spire of its central dome, a figure cast in gold _pierced_ in the blazing sunshine, scales aloft in one hand and sword low in the other. The façade was dominated by a deep Palladian breezeway, roof supported by massive rounded columns of smoothed stone, providing a plunge of deliciously chilled shade and entry to the main foyer.

A sweeping flight of steps spilled from the mouth of the courthouse like an artificial waterfall. The expanse was strewn with clusters of reporters, made torpid by the violent heat, waiting to swarm. Attendance was higher than usual, scavengers scenting carrion, every outlet wanting a cut of the meat. The sensational trial taking place within was unlikely to leave any of them hungry.

She waited. She counted her breaths, keeping time by her pulse.

It was a risk, to snipe a moving target in a crowd- especially from such a great distance. A clean kill was unlikely even under favourable weather conditions. Any gunman had to be breathtakingly arrogant to attempt it, and _justifiably_ arrogant to have the palest chance at success.

She blinked. Her lashes brushed against the scope.

Her grip on the rifle was comfortable. The metal was snug against the hollow of her shoulder and the palm of her hand, moulded as though cast in wax. She preferred blades- subtle and sharp with a deft, solid weight that felt natural- but she certainly wasn't _unskilled_ with firearms.

The courthouse steps rippled with a flurry of activity.

A streamlined sports car pulled up the curb. In the same instant, the reporters surged upstream. A figure- _the prosecutor_\- came into view, flanked by an escort of uniformed court bailiffs.

The journalists rapidly converged, brandishing cameras and microphones and a mouthful of shouted questions.

_Seconds_. She had seconds.

Bailiffs pinned back the incoming tide, creating a perimeter between the media and the prosecutor. With the press of bodies several torsos thick, the prosecutor was forced to slow, and offer a curt statement for the public.

Crosshairs alighted upon their target.

Through the scope, the platinum blond hair caught and threw off light like water.

She exhaled. Her breath glanced off the metal of the gun.

Her finger curled around the trigger.

_Crack_.

The gunshot was crisp- unlike the full-body, obnoxious _bang_ of movie gunfire- a low-decibel _snap_ of displaced air and metal exploding from a long, slender barrel. The echo wouldn't even reach the streets below.

She gazed through the rifle sight patiently.

A brief delay- and the bullet struck with a fine spray of blood. The impact was rendered mute by the distance.

On the steps of the courthouse, the crowd split apart like fruit under a knife.

The prosecutor cut through briskly, and stepped into their waiting car.

On the rooftop, the sniper straightened. Detaching the scope from her rifle, she glanced through the lens for confirmation.

A flawless shot at one thousand, six hundred and thirty-two feet.

The other sniper was neutralised.

She still didn't much like guns.

Setting the sight aside, she plucked out her earplugs, dropping them back into their plastic carton, and began unloading and disassembling the rifle, field-stripping it with practiced, efficient movements, replacing the parts in the case. She could taste the bruise-hot sunshine soaked in her skin, the blood breaking in her mouth, the salt clinging to her lips. Her pulse thrummed behind her softened, aching eyes.

Several minutes later and several city blocks away, her phone burst to life with the crash of a grunge-rock guitar and gravelly vocals.

Gait lilting with surprise, she retrieved the cherry-lacquer device from her linen shorts, low-heeled sandals snapping crisply on the pavement, blending with the miasma of molasses-thick LA traffic.

"_C__héri_," she answered casually, combing her fringe back with a single finger, "hi."

"_Ah, _schatzi, _finally!_" The voice purred, but the velvet low tenor was ruptured by an undercurrent of genuine joy, bright as the strum of an acoustic guitar. "_We haven't talked in a while. I was beginning to feel neglected, you know._"

She kicked up her heel and kept walking. "Well, I've had a particularly busy week- thanks to a certain individual who shall remain nameless for his own protection."

She was rewarded with a warm, rich noise masquerading as carefree dismissal. "_You'll thank me later._"

"_You_ will thank _you_ later-"

"_Anyway,_" he interjected breezily, _"are you free today? I somehow managed to steal a prime piece of real estate by the waterside- I can have lunch waiting, if you care to join me, as well as a few case studies to argue our way through. I'll even give you first refusal of for versus against. What do you say?_"

"And to what do I owe this sudden generosity?" Her lips curled into a coy smile. "Trying to bribe me? Maybe you're worried I'll abandon you for a better offer-"

"_Please_," he replied, mock-affronted, "_what better offer? You adore me. We both know you have a type_."

She smirked, humming contemplatively, eyes lifted heavenwards. "Blonds?"

Full, unaffected laughter crackled from the receiver. She had to smile back at it.

"_Is that a _yes_ I'm hearing?"_

"You, _chéri_, tend to hear whatever you like." She shifted the strap of her backpack across one golden shoulder, conscious of the hard ridges pressing at her back, jutting through the sturdy waterproof fabric. "I need to drop something off first. If you're nice to me, I might pick up ice cream on my way over."

"_Aha! I knew you couldn't resist me!_"

His voice almost- _almost_\- washed the acrid phantom taste of bile from the back of her throat.

"_Oh, also, I've been thinking of some names for the band, so we need to go through them together._"

"You do realise that _the band_ currently consists of just you."

"_Not for long,_" he declared blithely, and she wished he could see her withering expression. "_You'll get that call-back, lose the bet, become my legendary co-frontwoman, and the world of music will be internally grateful to me for baiting you into it-_"

"Not a chance," she shot back. "Even if you coerce me into joining, I'll hide behind the drum-kit at the back. Or at least play bass. No one cares about the bassist."

He scoffed. "_Cliff Barton_."

"Also the primary songwriter, doesn't count. Exceptions prove the rule."

"_Gene Simmons_."

"Co-vocalist."

"Keanu Reeves?"

"It's _Keanu Reeves_."

"_Pete Wentz_."

"_Low blow_! And primary lyricist, don't try me, _chéri_."

"_Paul McCartney!_"

"Co-vocals, _again_-"

"_Like you won't be writing and singing half our songs, anyway!_" He said, exasperated._ "Come on, you know you want to. Musical chemistry like ours can't go to waste, _ja_? They'll love us. We'll go multi-platinum overnight!_"

She paused at a crowded crosswalk, waiting for the lights to change, wryly predicting, "And someone will hypersexualise me within a week or say something unthinkingly sexist in an interview, and you'll say something cutting back to them with a smile-"

"_And you'll protect me from the inevitable fangirls who don't appreciate the concept of personal space-_"

"And we'll defend each other from the inevitable ridiculous press coverage and protect each other's privacy-"

"_And stay up late in our apartment, writing music until the early hours- I'll come up with the melody, you'll put lyrics to it- see? Now you're getting into it! Doesn't it sound perfect, _schatzi_?_"

The traffic light flicked to green.

She tried not to sound too wistful.

"Sounds like a dream, _chéri_."

* * *

_June 19, 2017, 08:07PM  
_ _Olympus Tower  
_ _Apartment 1221_

With the encroaching sunset, the heavy heat was finally dissolving into something cooler- like layers of wool and down reduced to a single sheet of linen.

The apartment was bathed in golden light, gentler than the glare of midday, pouring through the glass of the panoramic window and setting the sterile space aglow; the vista of the city glittered as though encrusted with gemstones in the sunset (_like dew in blades of grass from a place of a lifetime ago_), rendered hazy through the veil of smog. The rays struck deep into the colour of her hair, filtering through her dark lashes. She teased a few chords from the strings of her acoustic guitar, fingers stained metallic from hours of practicing.

She paused abruptly- placing the plectrum between her teeth and raking her tresses back with one hand- reaching for the notebook on the coffee table. Scrawling out a few lyrics and corrections to the motif, she tossed the pencil aside- it _clinked_ against an abandoned glass, tepid water shuddering with the impact- and ran through the reworked hook.

For a moment, the apartment brimmed with cresting music and falling sunlight, and everything was beautiful.

Her phone lit up on the glass-topped coffee table, thrumming with intermittent vibrations and hard-cresting synthetic drumbeats and husky, mordant vocals.

"Ah. That time already?"

She slid a hand down the fretboard of the guitar, hearing the strings shriek quietly with the friction, and set it aside by its polished rosewood neck. She noted the illuminated caller identification: _DNA_. Quite a neat double-edged acronym, she thought.

She watched the smartphone ring with an air reminiscent of watching an ant struggle in a pool, drifting in helpless circles as its legs wriggled desperately.

One vibration- _two_\- _three_.

_Four_.

_Five._

_Six._

_Seven._

Then- _eight- nine_\- a hand snatched it up, thumb swiping across the screen.

"You're being annoyingly persistent," she said, accepting the call and answering before she could decide why. "I thought you would have given up by now."

She heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line.

"_Please- please don't hang up-_"

She took vindictive pleasure in doing just that. Terminating the call, she tossed her darkened, inert phone back onto the coffee table with a clatter.

She had just settled back into position with her guitar when her phone lit up again, humming across the thick glass.

After a moment, she picked it up again.

"_What_?!"

"_Amaryllis, please don't hang up!_"

It gave her pause.

_She_ had used _that_ name.

_How did she know to use that name._

And _her_ voice- always so _acerbic_, incessantly piquant with high emotion even as _she_ chastised others for their lack of finesse and restraint- _that sullen, volatile little hypocrite_\- was raw with desperation.

"Are you dying?"

"_I- excuse me?_" The reply was soft, daintily confused, as impeccably faux-genteel as the childhood elocution lessons.

"_Are you_ _dying_?" She repeated, each word delicately stressed and flawlessly enunciated. "I assume you must need one of my kidneys, or half of my liver, or my bone marrow. Why else would you drive the estate to bankruptcy with these international calls? Unless this is about money."

It was unlikely, but not impossible. Perhaps _she_ had realised, despite the many baseless criticisms and accusations _she_ had levelled at her, that she would never let the family estate come to ruin if it was within her power to prevent it.

"_I wanted to talk. To have a _conversation_,_" _she_ said, saturated with hurt.

She remained unmoved. "You have never wanted to have a _conversation_ in your life, least of all with me. You make speeches and expect deference."

A short silence answered, connection crackling.

"_Am I- really such a monster of a sister for you to think that?_"

The question was that of a lost child, and it made her want to spit venom.

"Please don't flatter yourself with that title."

There was another pause. Increasingly bored, she put the call on speaker and placed her phone back onto the coffee table, taking her guitar from where it was propped up on the cushions, against the back of the sofa. The pads of her fingers found the chords in the strings.

"_Can we talk?_" The tinny voice issued from her phone.

"Nothing's stopping you," she said, brushing across the strings just enough to make them shiver out a soft trembling note, "seeing as I haven't hung up yet."

"_I meant in person. It needs to be face to face. Can you come to the house? As soon as possible?_"

She felt herself go blank with incredulity.

"you mean, can I drop my entire life in California, where I have been living for the last _four years_, to spend hundreds if not _thousands_ of dollars on a last-minute plane ticket halfway across the world, for a conversation that I'm not convinced is even worth having, because _you want to talk in person_? _No_," she said, hard as black ice, "strangely enough, I happen to have an existence that isn't subject to your _whims_."

"_I- I understand that you're busy. I _do_. I heard about that play, I looked you up, but I thought that you might like-_"

"You _had someone_ look me up. _You_ wouldn't know where to start."

"_I-_" The staccato stutter of an unspoken lie spilled out, tripping over itself with hesitation. "_I- I had someone look you up, yes. I- didn't know where you would go. Or what you would do. So I hired someone. Discretely._"

The admission was surprising. It was almost halfway towards acknowledging a flaw or inadequacy.

Maybe _she_ really was dying.

"_What about after the play, then? Will you come?_"

"No. I have plans."

_She_ didn't need to know that such plans would bring her within an hour's flight of London.

"_Then before-_"

"I don't have the time to spare you."

It was pointedly worded.

She waited- for the defensive, egocentric denunciations of her being ungrateful and uncooperative, for the chime of the call being terminated.

"_Then, I will come to you_."

Her thoughts stalled.

"What."

"_For whenever you have a spare moment,_" _she_ continued firmly, gathering herself like momentum. "_Fifteen minutes is all I need. I will come to California- to the play, if you would like- if there's no other time you can see me. We can talk afterwards. Or during the intermission, if that is what I must do_."

It was unsettling, and deeply suspicious, how accommodating _she_ was being. Despite the imperious beginnings- she pressed the backs of her fingers across the length her mouth, suddenly and uncomfortably _uncertain_.

She spoke before she could second-guess herself.

"Send me the name of your hotel and room number when get to LA. I'll send you a backstage pass."

_She_ exhaled gustily, breath crackling against the receiver. "_Of course. You won't regret-_"

"Oh, I'm sure I will."

She swiped a finger across the screen to end the call before _she_ could reply.

* * *

_July 8, 2017, 12:58AM_  
_Wright and Co. Law Offices_  
_Loft Apartment_

Phoenix woke in a sweltering tangle of linens, opening his eyes to the shifting light and murmur of a television screen seeping through the open doorway, rippling moonlight blue and pooling shallowly on the floor like an overflowing sink.

He flung back the mussed sheets and peeled himself out of bed, lethargic with the treacle-thick heat. Scrubbing the residue of sleep from his face with the back of his hand, he padded barefoot into the living room. A cool breeze from one of the open windows caught his overheated skin like the edge of a clean butter-knife, carrying the distant current of the city's perpetually seething traffic.

He expected to find her with a disk in the player, watching an episode of _The Steel Samurai_, or one of the old Jack Hammer movies. It had become a pattern, these past few sleepless weeks.

He hadn't expected to find her watching the local news.

Phoenix halted behind the sofa, leaning against its backrest on his elbows, watching the screen over her shoulder. Maya didn't react. Her bare legs were crossed underneath her, dark hair loosed from its traditional topknot and beads into a glossy sheet to the base of her spine, the thin strap of her tank top sliding off one shoulder.

The screen flickered, splashing light across them. Behind the breaking news banner was live footage, spliced from and cutting between three different cameras. The angles and limited light from the streetlamps and neon alternating police strobes made it difficult to tell, but Phoenix would hazard a guess that it was on a street somewhere Downtown, outside a bar or a lounge. Cordon tape was strung across the sidewalk, fluttering in the breeze, uniformed officers standing in silent challenge to any overzealous members of the media circus skulking beyond the borders.

The headline blared out silently, bold ink-black upon stark white.

‖ _**BREAKING NEWS**__: BRUTAL MURDER AT THE ECLIPSE _‖

The volume was set to a low murmur, the anchor's report filtering into the quiet.

"_\- identity of the victim is currently unknown. Sources suggest that she may be the older sister of one of the play's principal actors. The suspect, who has not been named at this time, has been detained by the police on suspicion of murder. While details remain scarce, there seems to be little doubt that there will be an arraignment issued by the DA's Office by early morning-"_

"They say she's sixteen." Maya suddenly spoke quietly, through her fingers. The screen's reflection caught in her quartz-brown irises, bright and eerie, like a luminescent film over her pupils. "A year younger than I was, when I…"

Phoenix exhaled, slow and quiet.

"You want the case?" He asked softly.

Maya hesitated, absently nipping at her cuticles with her teeth.

"We're picking Pearly up from the station tomorrow."

"You go." The solution was simple, as far as Phoenix was concerned. "Pick her up, spend a few hours showing her around the city- it's her first time in LA, right? Properly, I mean. She basically grew up confined to the mountains, so I bet there's plenty stuff you'll want to show her. I'll go down to the detention centre first thing in the morning, investigate the scene if I can, then meet you back at the office for lunch."

She huffed out a breath. "You're making it sound _easy_, Nick."

"Isn't it?" Phoenix leaned forwards, lacing his fingers together. "Maya," he said, insistent, "_do you want the case?_"

Her head twitched in the direction of his voice. Then, she swivelled around fully, tresses slipping over narrow shoulders, meeting his eyes- heated with that fierce yet uncertain fire, a potent blend of determination and faint desperation.

"I want this case, Nick."

The _please_ was unspoken, and unnecessary.

Phoenix nodded, firmly. "Okay. Then we take the case."


	2. Chapter I: The Colour of Blood

_noblesse oblige : (noun phrase; French, meaning _nobility obliges_) the duty that those of privileged status have to act with honour, generosity, benevolence and accountability_

* * *

Chapter I  
_The Colour of Blood_

.{*}.

_July 8, 2017, 09:08AM  
Detention Centre  
Visitor's Room_

In the almost-year since he had passed the bar, Phoenix Wright had come to accept that his career as a defence attorney so far was- to put it lightly- _atypical_.

And not even in a compelling, satisfying, crime drama plot kind of way. More in a stressful, high-octane, chaotic, _someone-please-end-me-I-have-done-nothing-to-deserve-this _kind of way.

Despite his novice status, the past eleven months had seen Phoenix involved in some of the most prominent criminal trials in California. His résumé included solving the murder of his own mentor, representing the lead actor of a major superhero franchise on charges of murder, cracking a fifteen-year-old cold case that was about to be lost to the statute of limitations, and exposing corruption and evidence tampering by the heads of the DA's office and the county police. In the process, he had claimed victories against no less than three previously undefeated prosecutors, one of whom boasted a forty-year flawless conviction record. As of yet- _miraculously_\- Phoenix himself hadn't suffered a single loss in court.

The brief overview made it sound far more polished than it had actually been, or like Phoenix had actually known what he was doing at the time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every trial had been spent blindly bluffing his way through cross examinations, white-knuckling every twist until he somehow hit upon a chain of contradictions that unravelled the often bizarre, convoluted truth from the logical knots formed by the most uncooperative defendants, eccentric witnesses and unlikely coincidences in existence.

Phoenix was semi-convinced that he was cursed. Maybe, he theorised, seventeen years of friendship with Larry Butz had finally contaminated him, ensuring that any case that crossed his desk was basically a recently shaken jar of hornets waiting to be opened- except he didn't even have Larry's infuriatingly convenient obliviousness to help him coast through it.

Maya, ever the optimist, said that he was being an overly-dramatic cynic. After all, she pointed out with an irreverent grin, no matter the situation that Phoenix found himself in or how the odds were stacked against him, he always came out unscathed, and usually the victor.

She had a point, annoyingly enough. But then, Maya Fey was also the embodiment of entropy in a chirpy, five-foot-one package of short-hemmed kimonos, popular superhero shows and burger cravings, and therefore was not to be trusted.

Phoenix had told her that once, mostly teasingly. She had whacked his shoulder, pouted, and started muttering ominous mantras under her breath that Phoenix was pretty sure was just a meditative chant for when she was training under a waterfall. Not that he understood how sitting under a freezing mountain stream for several hours was supposed to increase spiritual sensitivity, but since the first day they had met, Phoenix had resolved to take Maya's unusual abilities and the traditions that came attached in stride. The sky was blue, grass was green, and Maya Fey was from an ancient line of spirit mediums that could channel the dead.

These were just the facts. _Apparently_.

_When did this become my life?_

Regardless, Phoenix had the sinking feeling that his first year as a qualified defence attorney had set a precedent.

And for that reason, arriving at the detention centre that day, he felt reasonably prepared- or maybe that was the nihilistic resignation talking- to face whatever lay beyond the door to the visitor's room.

Like striking gold, it had hit the height of summer in Los Angeles. The dense oceanic fog that poured in overnight, a weather phenomenon unique to the Southern Californian coast, had burned away under the late morning sun, tepid cloud cover dissolving into clear, intense bluebell in the hours after dawn. Midsummer bricked the city into a wall of heat; taking a cab would have been an excess, given the distance, but cycling from his office had left Phoenix shifting in his suit uncomfortably, sweat cooling on his skin, white dress shirt clinging to the plane of his back beneath his blazer. There were scarce few features of the detention centre that could be called _pleasant_\- even in the relatively anodyne visitor area, the air tasted like plastic, sterile and tense as a hospital waiting room, as though the ambience was infused into the linoleum where it couldn't be rinsed out- but Phoenix had to applaud the air conditioning system. Within a few minutes of it blasting overhead, he was feeling a little less like an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey, and more like a competent attorney who could remember the difference between _actus reus_ and _mens rea_.

Phone in hand, Phoenix scrolled through his news feed, waiting for his potential client to be released from their holding cell. The facts of the case remained murky- details from local media reports were sparse, everything behind the sensational headlines visibly padded with guesswork and speculation.

_It's almost like the police are limiting how much information is being released_, Phoenix mused. _Which is pretty unusual. When Mia died, they had her name and photo in the news by the next morning. Unless the LAPD has suddenly changed their policy on how they interact with reporters, it doesn't make any sense._

His thumbnail tapped against the screen pensively.

_I can't think of any reason why they would be keeping things quiet. But then again, it's hard to guess what they might be keeping secret when there's basically nothing to go on._ _Still- it feels a little extreme. I didn't even know the name of the suspect until I got here, and that was only after they verified my credentials._

What little information was available was eerily familiar. Late last night, a girl in her late teens was arrested on suspicion of murder. The victim was her older sister, and the suspect was found standing over the body by an eyewitness.

Knowing his luck, Phoenix anticipated more unsettling parallels. _Coincidence_ was becoming a familiar friend.

"Attorney!"

Phoenix looked up. The guard on duty opened the door to the visitor's room, nodding curtly.

"Ah." Phoenix locked the screen, putting his phone away. "Thanks." He returned the gesture, conscious of the value of courtesy in the limited circles of the justice system, and entered the room.

The visitor's room was a liminal space, immutable and detached from external reality, like a pocket dimension where a minute within was an hour without. The secure cinderblock cell was split in half by a sheet of reinforced glass, punctured by a starburst grate to permit sound to pass through, generic blue folding chairs stationed at the thick ledge beneath each side of the window. The only source of natural light was the barred window on the detainee's side of the glass, set high in the wall, in the corner beside the omnipresent gaze of the CCTV camera.

A feminine figure- the accused, the defendant, his potential client, Phoenix didn't know which label he should use for the moment- was already seated on the other side of the glass. The door clicked closed behind him, and-

Phoenix balked.

He had expected similarities.

Not _these_ similarities.

_But apparently_, Phoenix thought, somewhere in the small, backup-generator powered sector of his brain that was still operational, _someone in the great cosmic bureaucracy screwed up and made an administrative error. Or maybe the universe really does just hate me that much. Wouldn't be surprised._

The rest of Phoenix's mental functions- the parts that weren't supplying unhelpful commentary- had locked up.

Had he not known that the colour could be natural, Phoenix would have suspected that it came out of a bottle. Her hair was _red_\- deep, intense cinnabar red, rich and visceral as a daub of fresh blood against the austere room, curling around her shoulders, glowing maple-gold where the sun caught it like kindling, iron oxide and coppery on his tongue just looking at it. Memory hooked into his gut, and _yanked_. His vision smudged, blurring with the distant echoes of a different young woman with the same pigment in her hair- darling as a doll, fragile as wood violets, willowy and porcelain-fair with dark, doelike eyes, compact features in a heart-shaped face, sweetness and light given physical form and a smile like pink lemonade. Phoenix remembered how that angelic visage had warped with contempt- the sickening swoop of bewilderment in his stomach as he watched- rosebud mouth shrivelling, nose crinkling into a beautiful snarl, sugar-shell cracking open to poison, thick as tar.

He remembered the way she tossed her _red, red_ hair over her shoulder, each strand as straight and neat as a pin, glossy as hard candy.

_What a joke you are. Honestly, how can any woman ever count on you for anything?_

He blinked the vision away. The moment passed, dissolving with his next breath.

When Phoenix refocused, he immediately retracted any comparison. There was nothing _delicate_ about the young woman sitting in front of him.

Every inch of her was cut from hardened grace- evocative of statues of ancient gods and the ruins of great empires, a thousand miles removed from daydream softness and wisteria blossoms- as though she could crush diamonds to dust beneath her heel and use the glittering residue as cosmetic highlighter. She held herself with sangfroid, smooth and blank and at ease, in that way that people only were when they felt completely in control. In contrast to the coldness she radiated, her complexion was an incongruously warm gold- the exact shade of the light cast by the sun dipping low on the horizon, natural tone enhanced by the Californian sun, complementing the colour of her hair. She was only sixteen, according to the arraignment papers, but Phoenix would never have believed it at a glance. In fact, he probably never could have guessed her age with any certainty. Her bone structure gave her something ageless, imperious and immortal; on a man, no one would hesitate to call her features _chiselled_, nigh upon aristocratic, with a straight nose, high cheekbones, defined jaw and firm mouth that could have belonged to some handsome, tragic Byronic hero from a period drama.

Transliterated into a feminine dialect, the effect was surprisingly lovely- like a dash of seasalt tossed into something sweet. When combined with her eyes, she was a deft twist on manufactured modern beauty standards, teasing the line between _classic_ and _unusual_-

_Wait a second._

Phoenix blinked again. And then a third time.

And then a fourth, just to be sure.

_What-_

Apparently, her hair was only the second most startling thing about her.

For a second, Phoenix was convinced that it was a trick of the light- except he shifted on his feet, changing his perspective and the way the shadows caught on her, and _no_, it definitely wasn't. Her eyes, almond-shaped and sharp, were two entirely different colours. One iris was cloud-blue, the colour of a frozen lake, almost reflecting into a silver-plated sheen- the other was earthen brown, singed like embers of a wood fire in a hearth, spitting sparks.

They carried in a look in them that could have cracked iron.

It took her quirking an eyebrow at him for Phoenix to realise that he was staring.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Phoenix took a seat, unlooping an arm from the straps of his leather satchel.

"Um- Miss Steele? I'm-"

"No."

Phoenix froze, eyes darting to the side and back uncertainly.

"I- I'm sorry?"

She spoke with an undercurrent of natural command, swift and sharp as a scythe, tempered at the edges with something oddly courteous- although maybe that was just an effect of her cut-glass English accent, every word as crisp and correct as legal documents fresh from the printer. "Forgive me, but I don't want to waste more of your time than necessary. You are Phoenix Wright, correct? The defence attorney."

Phoenix's thoughts had turned to radio static. "Um- yes-? How did you-"

"At the risk of sounding presumptuous," she continued, crossing her legs at the knee in a fluid, measured motion, smooth as glass, "I can only think of one reason why you would be here. So- thank you for your consideration, but I don't require your services."

"Oh." Phoenix deflated slightly, a little taken aback but not particularly upset. He eased back into the plastic folding chair, stiff hinges creaking. "So- you already have representation, then? For tomorrow's trial."

The girl glanced aside, coiling a section of her jaw-length fringe around her index finger absently, like a spool of thread. "I'm sure I'll be assigned a public defender before the end of the day." She let the skein of hair unravel against her cheek. The colour was rendered more brilliant against her plain t-shirt, the fabric generic and crisp-new, most likely prison-issued from when they took her clothes into evidence. "But again, you have my gratitude for the offer, Mr Wright."

Phoenix felt as though he had been clubbed over the head with a phonebook.

Everything was thrown into reverse. He wasn't unfamiliar with clients who didn't want a defence, _any_ defence, but he had quickly discovered their reasons for it. They had both been so vehement in their refusal, defensive, lashing out like a wounded animal in a trap and so _obviously_ hiding their fear behind hostility that it made a strange sort of sense that they tried to rebuff any offer of help. By contrast, the girl seemed almost- _conciliatory_\- as though she simply didn't want to inconvenience him. To all appearances, her arrest was little more than a mild annoyance, the girl remaining unruffled despite the severity of her situation; the police rarely filed charges unless the prosecutor was confident that they could secure a conviction, and Phoenix knew from personal experience how brutal it could be in her position, between interrogations that could last late into the night and the unnerving exposure of the holding cells.

Even innocent people felt the pressure.

Either the girl had nerves of steel, or-

Phoenix was struck by the fleeting thought that this is what it looked like, when a criminal had been caught, and gracefully accepted defeat.

_Nope! No jumping to conclusions, Wright! Maybe she just really is _that_ confident that she'll be found not guilty… or… something?_

On another note, Phoenix was under no illusions. He was only in his first year of practicing law; it had been an exceptional foundation, but his reputation was still being built. While the cases he had handled were famous, most of the general public wouldn't know his name off the cuff. Yet she had recognised him on sight, before he could even get out the words to introduce himself.

_Okay, so, weird._

Dimly, Phoenix was aware of the girl observing him closely, disinterest creasing slightly with concern.

"Mr Wright?"

"Huh?" He jolted out of his thoughts. "Oh, uh, yes?"

"Are you alright?" The flick of her mismatched eyes was diagnostic. "You look like you might have a touch of sunstroke."

"Wha- oh! No! No, I'm fine, really. I just-" Phoenix let the other strap of his satchel slip from his shoulder, catching in the crook of his arm with a soft _thump_ and clink of metal buckles. "Sorry, but, how exactly do you know me?"

Her eyebrows twitched upwards.

"I've observed some of your trials." She made it sound as though it should have been obvious.

"Observed- oh." Something clicked for Phoenix. "From the public gallery, you mean?"

She nodded, lashes dipping.

"I have a friend who recently graduated from Themis. We sometimes go to the District Courthouse to watch whatever major criminal case is on the docket, so that he can take practical notes. We were there, last- October, wasn't it? The People versus Will Powers." Her head tilted slightly. "You made quite an impression."

"I see…" It took Phoenix a second to realise that he had been complimented. "Oh! Um, thank you."

_Themis. _The gears in his head ground back into motion. _Right. I've heard of that place- Themis Legal Academy. It's that prestigious law school up past Elysian Valley, the one that offers specialised courses for prosecutors, defence attorneys and judges. I guess with a friend who's a student at a famous college like _that_, she'd probably know a little about lawyers in the city, and major court cases from the past year._

_Okay. One mystery down._

"Can I ask, then," Phoenix said, "why you're refusing my offer of defence? Why you plan to refuse _any_ defence, by the sounds of it?"

The girl's gaze cut towards him. It pinned him in a way that made Phoenix think of a jaw clamping down on a jugular, the pressure just enough to hold its prey in place and placid, but not enough to break skin and draw blood. It was force, carefully leashed.

She let the moment linger, just long enough for it to begin to congeal and settle on Phoenix's skin.

"Because my trial," she said, each syllable designed to hold attention, "unless someone screws up _spectacularly_, is guaranteed to render a guilty verdict. And I have no intention of marring your perfect record. Everyone has to lose at some point, but your first loss should be worthwhile. You're too good a lawyer not to have that consolation."

Phoenix frowned, leaning forward against the table, the colours of his reflection rippling across the glass like a wash of watercolour on wet paper.

_I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that._

"Why do you think you're going to be found guilty?" He tried, testing the waters.

She flicked her head to the side. A glint of dark, self-deprecating humour glinted through her impassive mask, twisting a tripwire-fine smile out of her like a lockpick.

"Because I am practically gift-wrapped for the prosecution," she informed him, her cadence almost lilting with amusement. "I had motive. I had opportunity. I had access to the crime scene. I have forensic evidence implicating me. An eyewitness caught me _in flagrante delicto_, standing over the body. Oh, and I have it on good authority that the prosecutor assigned to my case has a personal motive for pursuing a guilty verdict with particular vehemence. Not that they're in short supply on the regular, but the point stands."

_… Alright_. Phoenix was not panicking. Phoenix was definitely not panicking because that _did not_ sound like the textbook definition of demonstrable guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Absolutely not. No way. Not at all. _Nope_.

He swallowed down something that tasted suspiciously like dread.

"Well- j-just because a case seems unwinnable-"

Phoenix wavered- and took a breath, drawing from the well of certainty that existed in the memory of his mentor. Mia Fey had been unassailable, confidence and kindness in a pressed charcoal suit and a primrose-yellow cashmere scarf, bolstering and dispensing advice to her fumbling protégé at every juncture, the pearls of wisdom that had accrued over months of her patient, rigorous guidance rendered in a soft glow in his memory, like drops of candied moonlight.

One of them stood out, in that moment.

_You'd be surprised, Phoenix, at how many people trip up under a good, hard stare_.

He fixed the girl with his strongest, most determined look, squaring his shoulders.

_G-got it, Chief. I'll remember that!_

"Just because a defendant _seems_ guilty, it necessarily doesn't mean that they _are_ guilty. That's what trials are for. If I believed everyone who told me that a case was hopeless and I should give up now, I wouldn't have much of a career." Phoenix said evenly. "_Or_ that win record that you bought up just now."

The girl absorbed this for a moment. She inclined her head, assessing, a curl slipping over her collarbone, drops of light chasing the filaments down.

"Perhaps you're right," she acknowledged, before looking up with a winning smile- charismatic, and heartless. "But I'm simply not the kind of person who deserves that kind of defence."

Before Phoenix could respond, she had risen from her chair and sank into an elegant, dramatic curtsey- one leg swept behind the other, drawing a hand into her chest with a swoop and flourish, the flare of her fingertips hovering over her heart.

"Goodbye, Mr Wright. It was a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She rose, and turned towards the guard at the door.

Phoenix rocketed to his feet, palms slamming onto the ledge, the force rattling the viewing window pane. He could the guards glaring in warning, the back of his neck prickling with heat.

"_Wait_! Wait, please- at least tell me what happened! Tell me your side of the story, if nothing else. That's all I'm asking."

The young woman glanced back over her shoulder, through the pall of her stunning hair, sharp with consternation. She was, Phoenix realised with a jolt, much taller than he had expected; there was barely an inch or two between them, their eye-line almost level with both of them standing. He could almost taste frost in the air, extremities freezing over under her scrutiny.

"This is all feeling rather backwards, you know," she said, sounding vaguely exasperated. "Shouldn't it be the criminal begging the attorney to hear them out?"

Phoenix offered a rueful smile, wondering at their shared thought.

"Well, I guess I'm not an ordinary lawyer," he said, allowing himself a wince at how true that was, before quickly sobering. "_Please_. Will you at least tell me what happened? It won't take long. I mean- it's my time we're wasting here, right?"

She stared at him searchingly, cold teal and warm russet. It was like a thumb jammed into a pressure point- utterly debilitating with terrifying ease and minimal effort, nerves seizing up and synapses misfiring.

Gazing back, Phoenix noticed something for the first time.

Her lashes were damp.

_Sixteen_. The thought struck him clean across the face. _She's sixteen._

"Why are you here?"

Phoenix pulled back, puzzled. "You already worked that out. As in- the literal _second_ I walked in the door? Like you said, I came here to hear you out and-"

"No, you're not hearing me," she cut him off, clean as a filleting knife. "_Why are you here?_ We're in Los Angeles. If you were trawling for a case, there is plenty of crime, and plenty of arrests, and plenty of falsely accused suspects in this building alone. Yet you're _here_. And you seem to be intent on remaining _here_. Why?"

He nodded to himself slowly, understanding what she was really asking. It wasn't a rare mentality, to always be looking for a catch- for razorblades hidden in the buttercream- but Phoenix couldn't help but wonder how many times this girl had almost been spitting sugared blood.

Phoenix straightened from where he had been leaning towards the glass.

"Actually, I didn't choose your case." He admitted, sensing that the truth would get him further than any well-meaning lie. "It was my- well, I guess you could call her my assistant? She saw the story on the news last night."

Phoenix watched, gaging her reaction. The girl hadn't moved, listening, weighing Phoenix's worth upon a set of metaphysical scales.

"She was in a similar position to you, once," he told her. "The circumstances are almost identical. She was a year older than you are now."

The girl levelled him with a penetrating glare.

"You're doing this for her."

It wasn't a question, but Phoenix nodded anyway.

"Yeah. I guess I am." He lifted a single shoulder in a slight, helpless shrug. "She'd never let me live it down if I didn't at least get your side of the story."

She stared him down a moment longer- and then emitted a soft scoff, glancing away.

"_Stubborn_," she muttered, heated as a fresh bruise, a hand carding through her hair, combing it back from her face. "I should have expected that, _and yet_."

Her hand dropped to her throat, still half-tangled in her tresses, toying with her collar. For a second, Phoenix thought he saw something wink between her fingers.

Her head flicked back to him, resolve written in the facets of her face. She circled around her chair and reclaimed her seat, folding her arms across her chest.

"This isn't a _yes_."

_But it's close enough!_ Phoenix thought triumphantly, unable to keep the smile off his face as he sat down opposite her, extracting a small notebook from his satchel's front pocket. Flipping it open to a blank page, he jotted down a few preliminary notes.

¦ _8/7/17 PvJAS  
_¦ _INV1 DETCEN DEFINT  
_¦ _Motive  
_¦ _Opportunity  
_¦ _Night of the Crime  
_¦ _Eyewitness  
_¦ _Prosecutor_

"Thank you, Miss Steele. Why don't we start with-"

"_Amaryllis_."

Phoenix looked up. "E-excuse me?"

"_Miss Steele _is irritating," she said, "and no one I actually like ever calls me _Jaime_. If we're going to be civil to each other, you can start by calling me _Amaryllis_. It's my middle name."

"_Amaryllis_." Phoenix tested out the name, fitting his tongue around the sound. He had to admit, the uncommon, elaborately-wrought name suited her better than the alternatives. "Okay. I can do that. Amaryllis, then. Let's start from the beginning. What happened last night?"

Her gaze drifted upwards, pensive. "There was a corpse in my dressing room, and I didn't put it there."

Phoenix shot her the most long-suffering look he could muster.

The girl- _Amaryllis_\- didn't look remotely chastened. "At least, that's what I told the police."

"Is that the truth?" Phoenix pressed.

"They didn't seem to think so," Amaryllis answered nonchalantly, deftly evasive. "Although, in fairness, if I _did _put it there, I would have some very compelling reasons to lie about it."

Sensing that the current line of questioning would get him precisely nowhere, Phoenix switched course.

"The victim- she was your older sister, correct?"

"Ruby Olivia Steele. Twenty-two years of age, seven years my senior," she replied, watching Phoenix note it down. "Born on the twentieth of September, 1994. A Virgo- _naturally_."

Phoenix's mouth pulled tight. It was hard to ignore Amaryllis' lacklustre reaction towards her sister's death, not to mention the bitter aftertaste that lingered in that last comment. Already knowing that he was going to regret it, Phoenix mentally braced himself, the tip of his biro hovering ominously over the first subject he had written down.

"What was your relationship like?"

Amaryllis gazed at him blankly.

_I wonder_, Phoenix thought dryly, _is that an _ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer_ kind of look? I mean, I get it, but come _on_! It's my job! Half of cross examination is asking painfully obvious questions to get an answer on record!_

"Do you know where my name originates from, Mr Wright?"

That, once again, was not what he had been expecting. It was becoming a pattern today. _What next? Is Maya going to agree to ramen for lunch instead of burgers? Is the prosecution going to turn out to be some polite and humble soul who winces every time I slam on the defence's bench?_

Thoroughly nonplussed, Phoenix found himself answering bluntly. "Uh, no. I don't. Should I?"

Amaryllis propped an elbow against the table, fingers curling underneath her jaw, heel of her hand supporting her chin.

"Not unless you're intimately familiar with botany or Virgil's _Eclogues_, no. _Amaryllis_ comes from the Greek _amarysso_, meaning _to sparkle_." There was a heaviness to her words, a quiet significance humming through her voice like the tone of a struck tuning-fork, keeping Phoenix listening despite the fact that she wasn't answering his question. It didn't feel like a deflection this time, unlike the way she had danced around him mere moments ago. "It comes from an obscure little story in Greek mythology- one of Mason's favourites, but don't hold that against it."

Phoenix's brows furrowed, intrigued. "_Mason_?"

Amaryllis closed her eyes for a moment, the image of serenity- then straightened and leaned back into her chair. "My father. Just call him Mason."

There was something strangely cold in her remark, pouring off her like the chill exuded by a window pane in middle of winter.

Phoenix said nothing, giving her space to talk.

"_There is a shepherdess_," Amaryllis began, even and measured as recited poetic meter, "_shy and beautiful, who dwells in the mountains of Hellas. One morning, she ventures into the foothills to gather wildflowers. It is there that she encounters a handsome young shepherd, by the name of Alteo, said to have the strength of Herakles and the beauty of Apollo. Yet he remains aloof to all who seek his favour. The shepherdess is smitten, but he has no more interest in her than a pebble in his sandal- his only love is flowers, for he thinks people fickle and liars, especially in their professed affections. And so she grieves. But for all her delicate appearance, her heart is not easily swayed, and she does not stop loving him. Eventually, with many admirers clamouring for his attention, Alteo issues a challenge to silence them: whoever can bring him a flower that he has never seen before will win his heart!_"

Even if he had wanted to interrupt, Phoenix had been rendered silent, vocal chords knotted by the dreamlike way she weaved the tale, as though she knew it by heart and backwards.

"_Yet this is no easy task. For Alteo's knowledge of botany is unparalleled, and all attempts to find a flower he has not seen end in failure,_" Amaryllis continued. "_But the shepherdess, in her desperation, consults the oracle at Delphi, and receives strange advice in return. At dusk, she must go to Alteo's dwelling dressed all in white, and pierce her heart with a golden arrow, calling for him to come out- and she must do so each night, until he answers her, without fail. And so she does. And for twenty-nine nights, blood from her heart drips at Alteo's threshold. And for twenty-nine nights, he does not answer. Her wound does not heal, or stop bleeding, or cease to pain her, but neither does she die_."

Lifting a hand, Amaryllis swept her brilliant hair behind her left shoulder. Phoenix spied a gossamer-thread glint of metal, catching the sunlight, almost hidden beneath the collar of her shirt.

"_Finally, on the thirtieth night, Alteo- for reasons known only to himself- opens the door. He finds her waiting for him underneath the stars, smiling like victory, with her arms full of the most breathtaking flowers in the world. From each drop of his shepherdess' blood, red blossoms have burst forth from the earth- lilies, with long bare stems and wide-open calyxes, a living symbol of how much she loves him- new flowers that have never been seen before. His heart thaws to her, and hers is healed. The flower goes on to represent radiant beauty, pride and tragic love for centuries, named after the girl whose heart gave them life_."

Phoenix finally spoke, his mouth dry. "_Amaryllis_," he guessed.

Wordlessly, her fingers slipped beneath her neckline, drawing out a fine gold chain.

Suspended from it was a pendant crafted in the likeness of a flower, no larger than a coin. Teardrop-cut jewels, the same colour as the deepest lowlights in Amaryllis' hair, formed the petals, their facets casting a net of starry refractions across her décolletage when the light struck. Three tiny honey-gold gemstones were set in the centre, mimicking the stamen. Behind the flower, lancing clean through its heart, was a single golden arrow, its sharp tip and fletching directly linked to the delicate chain.

"The amaryllis lily," she said simply, softening into the spectre of a surprisingly heartfelt smile, "yes."

"Did your father- Mason, did he give that to you?" Phoenix asked, curious as to what could pull that reaction from her, ice melting into sugar.

"Yes."

Phoenix's pocket _burned_.

He realised what was happening a heartbeat before it began. Time slowed, unnaturally- stuttering, braking and stumbling over itself- and his surroundings dimmed, swallowed in black like the burn and ripple of a ruined film reel, as though he were about to pass out. In the centre of the void, Amaryllis remained clear.

A heavy clink and rasp of metal shattered the abrupt, crushing silence. Chains as thick as his wrist snapped out, pulling taut and criss-crossing around Amaryllis like a web. Then, with a clank, several hefty locks- scarlet red, worked and studded with gold, built like strongboxes and thrice as sturdy- slammed into place, swaying with residual momentum.

Amaryllis had just lied to him.

_Psyche-Locks,_ Phoenix thought grimly. His heart hammered as the moment stretched artificially, the borrowed time giving him space to think, _but- I don't think I've ever seen this many before…_

Two locks each were suspended just above her shoulders; two more hung parallel to her waist. The fifth and final lock was sealed directly above her heart, forbidding any who cared to pry into its depths. Each lock represented a measure of mental willpower, of her determination to keep something secret, locked away where only she could reach.

_The more locks there are, the bigger the secret, _Phoenix recalled the instructions that Pearl had given him, the first time he had experienced this mind-breaking power. _I never would have guessed that she was hiding something- she didn't even flinch. But what could possibly be so important about that necklace that she lied about it, and that it triggered _five_ locks?_

Phoenix shook his head to dispel the thought, shelving it for later.

He discretely slipped a hand into his pocket. His fingers skimmed the surface a small charm- a piece of glassy, pale-green jade, carved in the shape of a comma and pierced through with a single hole, reminiscent of a number _nine_, radiating a strange, cool energy that sent a frisson down his spine.

Phoenix hadn't actively expected to come across any Psyche-Locks, but carrying the magatama with him wherever he went had become habit. It was less about the supernatural ability it endowed- glimpsing when people were hiding something, even if he made no attempt to unlock the secret, still felt somewhat invasive, and he had sworn to use it sparingly- and more the fact that was a gift from Maya, one that she had handed over with uncharacteristic reverence. Almost every member of the Fey Clan he had ever encountered- even Mia, though he hadn't known its significance then- wore a magatama, and Phoenix had the feeling that he had been given something uniquely precious.

At a thought from Phoenix, the power withdrew into the charm. The metaphysical locks and chains dissolved, darkness fading back into reality, time resuming its usual pace.

Unaware of what he had seen, or of more than a second or two passing, Amaryllis dropped the pendant back under her collar, pressing it to her breastbone through the thin fabric briefly.

"She's never forgiven me for that."

"Your sister, you mean? For what?" Phoenix prompted, hoping he sounded less affected that he felt. He didn't have the current mental bandwidth to explain a power he barely understood to a person he barely knew.

"For having that name. For being born. For _breathing_. All of the above." She leaned back, folding her arms, legs crossed at the knee, one calf kicking up and falling in a metronome rhythm reminiscent of the deceptively languid sway of a cat's tail. "Inventing ways that I have wronged her is a talent of hers. She even managed to blame me for being there that day, when Mason was killed- as though I somehow cheated her out of her right as _the firstborn_ and _daddy's favourite_. As if I ever wanted it."

Phoenix, resignedly underlining _v. v. bad relationship_ several times in his notebook, paused and mentally rewound her statement.

"Wait," he said, slowly, "_killed_?"

"Mm. Sniper bullet to the brain," Amaryllis lifted a hand, touching a spot just above her left eyebrow with a single fingertip, relaxed and steady. "Right here. It would have been his temple, but he started turning his head."

Phoenix felt his throat sicken. "How old were you?"

"It was a few days after I turned twelve. An early afternoon in February. We were having lunch on the mezzanine of a restaurant, in Hamburg."

"I-" Phoenix could taste the bile at the base of his tongue, rigid with horror. "I'm _so_ sorry."

Amaryllis looked away.

"Don't be," she said, absently tracing the line of her clavicle. "In any case, I left after that. I have no interest in living in the presence of someone offended that I have the _audacity_ to exist."

Maybe he was a coward. Maybe, if he was being lenient to himself, he was respecting Amaryllis' tacit acceptance of her father's murder and desire not to speak about it. Maybe he was disturbed by the clinical way she recounted it. Either way, Phoenix picked up the new thread.

"That's right. I noticed it earlier, but, your accent- are you British?"

She followed the change of subject without missing a beat, smooth as a waltz. "Technically, I'm dual citizen," she said, "as is Ruby. British father, American mother," Amaryllis elaborated upon catching Phoenix's questioning look. "We spent half of our childhoods in continental Europe- Germany, Switzerland, France, mostly. But yes. Legality aside, I suppose we think of ourselves as British, above anything else. Why, is it important?"

_Honestly, I have no idea. But you never really know with the cases I get._ "Not especially, I guess. But, when you say _left_, do you mean you came here, to the States? And Ruby- she stayed?"

"To manage the family estate- she inherited it after Mason's death. I was left with a trust fund, and a few peripheral investment holdings. If you did the math on it, it would probably amount to- oh, about a twenty-eighty percent split overall?"

_And yet _more_ motive, phenomenal!_ Phoenix thought sarcastically, resisting the urge to smack his forehead against the glass. _Give me a _break_! She really wasn't kidding when she said she was practically gift-wrapped… At least she warned me, I guess…_

"Right, but, if your sister stayed in Europe to manage the family estate, then what was she doing here in LA?"

Amaryllis lowered her head, contemplatively.

"I don't know."

"You- don't know?"

"No. I can speculate, but that's all." Amaryllis glanced away, the finest sliver of her contrasting irises visible between her lashes. "A few months ago, she started calling me. At first, I had no intentions of picking up, but she was persistent. It was like clockwork. Once a day, every day, without fail, always at the same time, and never more than twice. And, the time- it was always around seven or eight in the evening, close to sunset. Britain is fifteen hours ahead of California, so that means she was calling at around five in the morning where she was, close to pre-dawn even in summer."

"Huh. That _is_ really early." Phoenix admitted, clicking his pen absently. "Are you sure your sister wasn't just a morning person?"

Amaryllis gave a short, sharp exhalation from between her teeth. "_Tch_. Please. Ruby and I have precisely three things in common, and one of them is that we are not _morning people_."

"Right," he said, turning this shard of information over, examining the others in the light it cast, "so it's unlikely that she just _happened_ to be awake, and just _happened_ to call you then."

"Exactly. Then there's the cost of international calls, and the phone bills she must have been racking up. Eventually, I got curious enough to wonder what was so important, so I answered."

"You talked to her?" Phoenix straightened with a sting of nervous energy. "What did she say?"

"She wanted me to come to the house. _The _house, in England." A muscle in Amaryllis' jaw fluttered. "Apparently, she wanted to talk in person. I told her I wasn't interested. Then she offered to come to me. She said that she'd attend the play and talk to me during the intermission, if she had to. I sent a ticket and a backstage pass to her hotel room when she arrived. Like I said- I suppose I was curious enough."

Phoenix tapped the end of his pen against the open page. "What was so important that she wanted to talk about it in person?"

"I never found out." Amaryllis said.

Phoenix watched her eyes sharpen into the middle distance. He couldn't tell whether it was the frustration at never knowing what her sister had wanted to say, or the irritation from having to dredge up a past she attempted to leave several thousand miles behind her.

"But," he said, keeping his wording as neutral as possible, "you said you could speculate?"

Her lashes dragged shadows into her irises, like ink bleeding into water. "There are very few things in the world that could compel her to contact me."

"Such as?"

"That second thing we have in common." She said, lifting a hand to rest over her heart. "_Praesis ut prosis net ut imperes._"

The pen went slack in his hand. "I-I'm sorry, was that _Latin_?"

"The family motto since antiquity. _Lead in order to serve, not in order to rule_." Amaryllis' eyes flicked back to his, snapping into focus like the lens of a camera. "Even if she's unwilling to credit me with it, family duty- the legacy entrusted to us- it's something that I value. I always have. It's possible that she knows that, in her heart of hearts. Even if she _would_ rather cut out her tongue than admit that I have anything _close_ to a positive trait. If the estate was at risk- that might have made her swallow her pride and ask for my help, I think. I know that I would have given it, without question, regardless of how I felt about the current custodian."

_Huh. Family duty. _Phoenix hooked his thumb under his chin, mulling her declaration over. _From the way she talks about her sister alone, I wouldn't have thought it of her, but- I guess there must be more to it than that. It sounds like there's some kind of powerful history behind the two sisters, though. Maybe I should ask about that later._

A stray thought snagged his attention. "Just out of curiosity, you said _three things_," Phoenix pointed out. "That you and your sister had in common. What was the third thing?"

Amaryllis raised her eyebrow- and mutely twisted a lock of red hair around her finger.

Phoenix's eyes widened slightly.

"Oh."

Amaryllis tossed her tresses back into place with a flick of her head. He caught another glimpse of the elusive smile from before, a mote of laughter creasing around her eyes, haughty but strangely sweet.

It faded as rapidly as a stray spark, slipping out of existence, but Phoenix could see the image behind his eyelids when he blinked, a photo-flash burned into his retinas.

"Your sister said she would come to see you, during the play last night," Phoenix proceeded with the interview, striking through the topic of _motive_. "That was the scene of the crime, correct? The-" He checked his preliminary notes. "The Eclipse. An indie theatre?"

"_Supposed_ indie theatre," Amaryllis replied pointedly. "I doubt it's important to the case, but it's actually secretly owned and operated by a cabal of Hollywood executives."

Phoenix wished he could be surprised. Instead, he just felt weary. "_Seriously_?"

"Mm-hm." A brow arched and dropped quickly, exchanging a meaningful look with him. "They use it to test new actors on the public and critics, before they consider casting them in blockbusters as a _newly discovered gem_. The usual entertainment industry disingenuousness. As I said, not terribly important."

"Right. I guess not," he sighed, before refocusing. "You were one of the play's leads, right?"

"You're well informed," Amaryllis quipped idly. "It was a special one-night performance. _Heartstrings _is a musical about a young composer attending a prestigious music school, while trying to decide which genre she should dedicate herself to- classical, or contemporary. The protagonist plays eight different instruments onstage, and sings in multiple musical numbers."

"Whoa. That's- a lot." Phoenix remembered the student theatre productions at Ivy University. A coffee-jitter, frenetic energy had consumed those cast in leading roles, strengthening in intensity as the semester progressed; he winced at the thought of the meltdown that would have occurred if they had spent a semester on _Heartstrings_. "Sounds like a pretty demanding role. I'm guessing not many actors can do that."

"Oh, there aren't. In other productions, I'm told that they usually cast a decent mezzo or contralto, and have her fake everything else, miming along to a pre-recording or to live instruments in the orchestra pit. In my case, however, I can actually do everything that's scripted."

"Wait, you play _eight_ instruments?!"

"No, I play twelve." Amaryllis said calmly, as though surprised that he was even asking. "Piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, harpsichord, guitar, bass guitar, drums, harp, Irish lyre, and _koto_\- ah, that's the Japanese zither. I went through a, ah- _phase_."

Phoenix made a strangled, incoherent noise at the back of his throat. Amaryllis' brow creased.

"Mr Wright? Are you _sure_ you don't have heatstroke? Maybe we should take a break-"

"I'm good," he choked out, clearing his throat. "Um, so, anyway- does that mean you're an aspiring actress?"

She snickered. "Hardly." Her eyes flicked upwards, smirking faintly. "I lost a bet."

Phoenix stared at her, intrigued. "A bet?"

The wry curve of her lips relaxed, turning pliable as aged honey.

"I love music."

Phoenix believed her. He could hear it in those three little words, spoken on an exhale.

"I trained from a young age. Music was a refuge, for the longest time. When I came to LA a few years ago, it was with the vague idea of writing music professionally. I knew that breaking into the industry would be hard enough, but doing so as a performer in my own right seemed unnecessarily difficult when I wasn't even convinced that I _wanted_ to be in the limelight, or that I would be suited to it. But, I have this friend- a fellow musician, and a natural performer. The type who uses the energy of a crowd and returns it tenfold. He's incredible. A rockstar, even where it doesn't involve music. And he- _disagrees_ with me." She laughed softly. "_Vehemently_. We made a bet last summer. He was convinced that if I auditioned, I could get the lead based on musical skill and stage presence alone, even without formal theatre training."

Amaryllis shook her head lightly, affection that ran as deep as bone in the gesture, rising to the surface of her skin like a blush.

"He didn't stop gloating for a _month_. I know it was my own fault for letting myself be provoked, but in my defence, he knows me too well." She paused. Her expression clouded into apathy. "Although, he probably won't be able to collect on his winnings, as things stand now."

The moment and its dreamlike levity evaporated, leaving her cold.

Phoenix bit the inside of his cheek. For a few moments, she had _glowed_, like a sunset, strangely innocent and open.

"We're veering off topic," she said neutrally. "You'll want to know the timeline of last night."

Phoenix nodded. "If you could."

"Act I began at eight sharp, the intermission was at nine, Act II resumed at nine-thirty. Final curtain was at eleven. The body was found at eleven-twenty, I believe, but you would have to check the police report."

He penned down the timeline, going over the numbers several times to bold them, ink rich on the fresh page. "And when did you arrive at the Eclipse?"

"Six-fifteen, or thereabouts," she said. "I was one of the last to arrive. By the time I had finished with makeup, the costumes for the main cast were being released. I asked the head costume designer if she would mind starting with mine. There wasn't anything particularly complicated about getting into it, but she's- _precious_ about her work, and the assistance with the zip and my hair was appreciated. Just after seven, I stepped outside- there's an alley at the back of the theatre, accessible from backstage via the fire escape."

"You stepped outside? Why?"

"Reception inside the theatre is awful," Amaryllis explained. "A quirk of the architecture, I think. I couldn't get a signal in my dressing room, so I went outside to make a call. I was back inside about ten minutes before curtains up."

Phoenix made a note in the margins- _CALL- verify, poss. alibi._ "Your sister said she would come by during the intermission, right? Did you see her that night?"

"Briefly." Amaryllis admitted, dipping her head. "We didn't discuss anything important. She stalled with small-talk for a few minutes. Then I had a wardrobe malfunction as I was changing- the strap of my dress tore and was hanging by a few threads, so I had to go to the head costumer for repairs. By the time I got back to my dressing room, she was gone- back to her seat for Act II, I assume. I barely had time to touch up my makeup, so I didn't bother looking for her." She lifted her head, profoundly laissez-faire. "I found her corpse in the dressing room's bathroom about twenty minutes after the end of the show."

"I see." Phoenix laid down his pen, reviewing the evidence so far.

There were certain facts that he couldn't ignore. There was no love lost between the sisters. The victim was found in the defendant's dressing room. Amaryllis may have been the last person to see her sister alive. The circumstances of her arrest were incriminating.

Yet, glaring though the gaps in the circumstantial evidence- it didn't quite make sense. Amaryllis struck him as intelligent, and meticulous, remarkably self-possessed even while under a significant amount of stress. Luring the victim to the scene of the crime, as the prosecution was bound to argue she had done, and committing murder in a location that she was demonstrably linked to ran counter to everything Phoenix had seen of her so far. There would be far less obvious, far less public, far less incriminating ways that she could have done it, if she was the perpetrator. It felt unlikely- _possible_, Phoenix conceded grudgingly, _but unlikely_\- that she had simply snapped and attacked the victim in blind rage.

And while people had killed for a lot less, he was struggling to see anything that shrieked of motive. The split of the inheritance seemed unfair, and might be incentive for most people. But Amaryllis didn't seem to dwell on it beyond the principle of the matter. Instead, she only seemed to want to think about her sister as little as possible- content in cutting ties and moving to the opposite side of the world, cool apathy coloured by a long-faded hint of bitter resentment based more on past wrongs than current hatred.

Phoenix wondered what the prosecution had on Amaryllis that made them move forward with the indictment. Skimming through his notes, he alighted upon something that had almost been lost in the influx of information.

"The prosecutor," he said, disturbing the quiet that had settled over the room. The echo of his voice rebounded off the concrete, like a startled flock of birds taking flight. "Earlier, you mentioned the prosecutor for this case. You said that they have a special reason for pursuing a guilty verdict."

"Oh, good catch." Amaryllis glanced across at him, stilling where she had been mindlessly toying with a stray lock of her hair, curling and releasing. Surprise turned the already quartz-clear pitch of her voice as bright as sunlight on a slick of ice. "I honestly thought you'd forgotten, Mr Wright."

_I actually kind of did, though,_ Phoenix very carefully did not say, offering a noncommittal hum.

From the way that the shadows at the corners of her lips deepened, a shrewd look condensing in the curve of her irises, she knew precisely what he had been thinking.

Phoenix categorically refused to squirm under her scrutiny, feeling like a child who had been pulled into the principal's office for throwing chalk in the schoolyard. He blamed the effect on the colours of her eyes. The stark contrast could amplify any look, and was an unfair advantage.

"They were most likely selected because of their international experience, but their incentive to win- that's a little more complicated. First, they have a reputation to uphold. Second, there's that _personal_ reason, a connection that's not particularly relevant beyond its effect on our prosecutor. Third, from what I hear, the British Embassy is exerting diplomatic pressure on the US government over this case. Any errors or oversights cannot be tolerated. Even rumours of such are unacceptable. In order to withstand international scrutiny, their case will have to be-" Amaryllis raked her teeth across her lower lip, a strange mordant mirth making her enunciate her consonants with a _snap_ like splitting bone, "_perfect_. The British government won't tolerate a conviction if there is even a shadow of a doubt concerning my guilt, and I'm sure that the US has already decided that it's not worth upsetting a close ally over a poorly-handled domestic murder trial. The slightest suggestion of a mistake, and the verdict would eventually be overturned, for politics if nothing else. The prosecutor is in a position where they either win, or die. They have to obtain a conclusive guilty verdict, or the subsequent appeal and acquittal may destroy their career."

"Wow," Phoenix exhaled, shoulders dropping. "I had no idea that Britain was so protective of its citizens. They must be involved because of your dual citizenship, right?"

Amaryllis _laughed_.

The sound was as blunt and brutal as a sucker punch to the diaphragm, but it extracted a startlingly lovely look from her, like a scatter of petals on sun-soaked stone.

"_Cute_. Well, at least you have a sense of humour."

It had been a while since Phoenix had felt like he was missing something during their conversation. He had almost forgotten what it felt like. "Uh- I'm sorry?"

Amaryllis shot him an appraising look.

"Oh, you were serious."

She spoke without a trace of inflection, the kind that denoted disbelief so profound that the shock didn't register immediately.

"I- wasn't expecting that. So then, the news media hasn't picked it up yet."

"Picked up- _what_, exactly?" Phoenix asked warily.

Amaryllis' head flicked away. "_Ah_."

_That_, Phoenix realised with a jolt- watching her thumb at her collar, tensing in a way that he wouldn't have noticed had she not been so collected for most of their meeting- that flinch was the first time he had ever seen her looking uneasy, or even anything less than unassailable.

"Hey, whatever it is, you can tell me! Really! No judgement here, I promise," he assured her warmly, smiling through his apprehension.

"Oh, there will be," Amaryllis said with a soft huff, somehow speaking to him directly yet with the air that he was hardly even present on her periphery. "You won't be able to help it, you're American. It's completely foreign to you. Like spelling _honour _with a _U_."

"What?"

She straightened, killing whatever words had been hypothetically on his tongue with a piercing look. "I'm going to pre-empt the obvious questions. _No_, I am not joking, _yes_, I am being serious, _yes_, people like that still exist, _no_, I have not met the Queen, _yes_, I theoretically could. Are we clear?"

"What."

Amaryllis ignored him, which was fair- honestly, Phoenix wasn't certain he wouldn't do the same in her position- raising her head high with adamantine resolve.

"The reason why the Embassy is actively involved is because Ruby and I are both members of the British aristocracy."

Phoenix blinked.

"_What_."

"We are the descendants of a prominent and highly regarded noble family that helped to shape the modern justice system," she continued. "That legacy is why the British government is intervening. They are most likely demanding the anonymity of the victim and defendant until a verdict is rendered- out of respect for that history, and the heritage we represent."

Phoenix swore that he could hear the distant, ancient crackle-whine of a dial-up modem as he attempted to connect to what she had just told him.

"So," he said, the words thick as molasses in his mouth, numb as novocaine, "you're, what- the cousin of a lord, or something?"

Amaryllis' eyebrows tugged together infinitesimally. The effect fell somewhere between sympathetic and exasperated.

"No," she said gently. "Mason was an _earl_\- the 22nd Earl of Cerensbury, 9th Earl of Reinscroft, and 13th Viscount Blakestone. Ruby inherited those titles after he died." Amaryllis paused and, as though sensing she needed a _coup de grace_ to finally end his confusion, added, "We are one of the highest ranking extant noble families in Great Britain."

Slowly, Phoenix nodded.

"Oh."

_Right. Okay. Okay, sure. Alright. Fine. Aristocracy. Highest ranking in Great Britain. Right. Fine. This is fine. This is _fine_._

_I mean, what does that even mean, right? No need to freak out. No big deal. Who even _cares_? Thinking it through, that just means that I'm currently… looking at…_

_Ruby inherited the title._

_Ruby is the murder victim._

_Amaryllis is-_

_Does. Does that mean._

_Am I looking at- am I _sitting right in front of-_?!_

Phoenix physically felt his brain decide _no thank you, that's enough for today_ and promptly shut down like an overheated laptop.

Somewhere very, very far away, at the entrance of the figurative rabbit-hole that his consciousness had just slipped into, he heard Amaryllis speaking casually.

"I'll give you a moment to process."

Phoenix might have gurgled out a quiet _uh-huh_ in response.

_Aristocracy. She's aristocracy. She's real-life aristocracy. As in, titles and castles and French guillotines and- I was talking to an _aristocrat this entire time_! Should I have bowed?! I mean, it's not as if I _knew_, right? She won't mind. Or maybe she will. What if she takes it as an insult? Am I even allowed to call her by her first name? I mean, she insisted, so it's fine, right? Maybe it would have been worse to say no. And it's not like she's aristocracy in _America_\- although I guess even abroad, royalty is royalty, does that work for aristocracy?_

_Wait- wait, what if she's related to _royalty?!_ She already has the British Embassy on her side, and- crap, what if I've caused an international incident?! What if I get arrested? What if the Queen of England orders that I be locked in the Tower of London because I insulted her- I don't know- second cousin-in-law or something?! _How the hell did I get here_?! What is my life?!_

Lost in his spiral of panic, Phoenix was insensible to Amaryllis' sigh, as she began to hum under her breath distractedly.

_Oh no. _Maya. _How is she going to react? She's never going to let this go. She'll hold this over me for the next fifty years. Like, we'll be seventy and she'll be all, _hey Nick, remember that time I told you to defend a girl who turned out to be pretty much royalty? Y'know, when the Fey family powers really came through for us? _(You channel the dead, Imaginary Future Maya, you're not _psychic_.) _Yeah, so, I guess we're having burgers tonight after all, huh, Nick? _Oh, fuck me, she's going to be insufferable. I may as well walk into the woods right now and live the rest of my life as a hermit surviving on berries and pine bark, giving free legal advice to hikers and becoming an urban legend. Maybe they'll even make conspiracy theories about me. This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we discuss the disappearance of a defence attorney who went missing after insulting European royalty, was driven insane by the realisation, and allegedly became a local myth of the Angeles National Forest._

Humming evolved into soft, almost absent-minded singing. Amaryllis' voice switched between clearer notes and darker tones, rich as a full-bodied wine- with more effort than if she hadn't been battling the strain of keeping her volume low- but her skill was lost on Phoenix, in his catatonia.

_Oh, fuck, _Pearls_. How the hell is she going to react to me meeting a real-life lady like in her storybooks? Well, now I _have_ to take the case, I don't want to even imagine how she'll react if she doesn't get to help- but how the hell am I supposed to persuade _literal aristocracy_ to let me defend her?! Should I- should I kneel? That sounds about right- like, kneel and pledge my service or something? Would that be too weird? It sounds weird. It is weird. But they do it all the time in those period-piece movies. What is modern aristocracy even _like_? I didn't even know they were still a real thing! Do they just, I don't know, sit around in big fancy mansions drinking tea, or do they have actual jobs? And how did I not _see_ this?! She looks so damn- _regal_\- I probably would have believed someone if they told me she was _descended from princes_ or something, she has that look about her, like you should be obeying her-_

Something shattered through the wall of rapid-fire thoughts.

"_Gwah!_"

Phoenix startled with an undignified yelp. Looking around wildly, the vortex of confusion drained away, leaving him staring at Amaryllis.

Her hand was raised level with his face, close to the grate of air-holes in the thick glass. A volley of shockingly sharp finger-snaps had punctured his torpor.

"Back in the room?" She prompted, obscenely nonchalant. She seemed poised to start another salvo if necessary. "You were out for about three and a half minutes. I was beginning to worry."

"You are literally royalty," Phoenix breathed, still feeling a little hysterical under the encroaching numbness.

"_No_," Amaryllis said with a delicate frown and heroic patience; had he possessed the presence of mind, Phoenix would have been appreciative, and a little impressed, "I am _aristocracy_, there's quite a difference. It's a step lower on the hierarchy." Hand still aloft, she used it to indicate each tier helpfully. "Traditionally the class system goes _royalty, aristocracy, gentry_\- _clergy_ is an odd case that tends to fall somewhere between those last two, depending on their position in the Church- then _everybody else_."

"Okay, but are you- I mean, are you _related_ to royalty?"

Amaryllis lifted her head, perplexed but taking the query surprisingly seriously. "I _think_\- if I'm remembering correctly- there was a daughter from the seventeen-hundreds who married a branch member of the British royal family? And possibly a younger son who married a German princess, a hundred years prior. I'm not directly descended from either of them, however."

Phoenix promptly crumpled, like a wet paper bag.

"You're actually related to royalty," he said weakly, letting his head drop against the table, the surface mercifully cool against his forehead. Tables did not judge, he thought. Tables were indifferent to his plight. Tables did not announce that they were a high-ranking aristocrat out of nowhere. "What is my life. That's it. I'm _dead_. The Queen of England is gonna behead me and put my head on a pike."

"The Queen of _The United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth Realms_," Amaryllis corrected him tartly, lightly rapping her knuckles against the window. "And no she won't, Her Majesty has neither the constitutional power nor the upper body strength. You've had your allotted panicking time, Mr Wright, now sit up and _breathe_. In for seven, hold for seven, out for eleven. Rinse and repeat until you can see straight."

For lack of any better options, Phoenix followed her instructions.

"Better?" She asked, after several cycles had left Phoenix feeling a little more clear-headed.

"Yes," he said sheepishly. "I'm, uh- I'm not going to get thrown in the Tower of London, am I?"

Amaryllis' expression was as flat and cosmically indifferent as the Pacific Ocean, yet Phoenix had the feeling he was being laughed at.

"No. The Tower of London has served both as a prison and a stronghold in the past, but now it is a popular tourist attraction that happens to house the Crown Jewels. No cells available. Pentonville is a possibility though."

Phoenix went cold.

"That was a lie, relax."

He narrowed his eyes at her. She was _definitely_ laughing at him. "This is because I spent five minutes freaking out even after you warned me, isn't it."

"Three and a half." Amaryllis ran a hand through her hair, tousling her curls and pulling them clear of her shoulders, lips curving unrepentantly.

Phoenix glowered. _Mean_.

"Alright, fine. _Maybe_ I deserved that." For the sake of his needled pride, Phoenix attempted to re-rail the discussion onto a track vaguely resembling an interview. "Okay. Alright, so. Um. You said that your sister inherited the title from your father-? So she was a-" he hesitated, taking a stab in the dark, "an- _earl-ess_?"

Amaryllis huffed out a short, near-soundless laugh, lashes lowering, pinning down a smile.

"_Countess_," she corrected him, not unkindly. "_Count_ is a rank equivalent to that of _earl_, which comes from the Old English _jarl_, a title originating from Scandinavia and surviving the Norman Conquest. Hence, because the alternative is a little etymologically clumsy, a female _earl_ is called a _countess_."

"Oh. Right." Phoenix scrawled a note next to the victim's name. "So- that would make you-?"

"No one of importance," Amaryllis replied blithely. "As the daughter of an earl, I have a courtesy title of _Lady Amaryllis_, but it doesn't mean anything in practice."

He nodded- and drove at the one fact that had triggered his momentary breakdown.

"And what about now?"

"Hm?"

"Well," Phoenix said, tentatively, twirling his pen, "it's just that- I mean, you didn't mention any other siblings, or your sister having children. In that case, aren't- aren't _you_ the countess now?"

The ensuing silence spoke volumes.

Phoenix watched Amaryllis' unaffected mien steadily bloom with a tint of realisation, like blood percolating in water.

"Oh. Yes. I suppose it does," she said, unreadable. "I mean, she might have tried to change the order of succession by appealing to the government, but I doubt that she succeeded. Even if they would have been willing to consider it, there aren't many alternatives. We are the last direct heirs for four generations. The closest by genealogy would be the Baskerville line, but they renounced their claim to the title decades ago. They would have to go back another two generations before they found a viable branch, through Grandmother Bea's younger sisters, but there's quite literally no one else for two hundred years who-"

She froze.

"Amaryllis…" Phoenix gentled his tone, having the feeling that it was only just sinking in.

"I am the last living direct descendant of my house," Amaryllis said blankly. There was a muted grief and horrified comprehension beneath the simple statement of fact. "The title is going to die with me."

Phoenix felt the bottom of his stomach fall out.

_Family duty,_ she had said earlier. It wasn't something that Phoenix was overly familiar with, at least not in the way that Amaryllis spoke of it, gallant as a knight of ages past swearing their oaths on bended knee.

She had said that she held the value close to her heart, regardless of whatever others may think of her. Overnight, that duty had disintegrated into ash. The chain tethering her to that anchor and burden was gone, the links snapped and broken, leaving only her behind.

_What happens to family duty, when you're the only one left? When there is no _family_ to be dutiful to?_

Words weren't nearly enough, but they were all he had. Phoenix was accustomed to using them as weapons; more rarely did he employ them as a balm.

"I'm sorry, Amaryllis."

A second passed. And then another.

Then, Amaryllis drew her shoulders back, reconstructing herself in marble, ice and gold.

"You have questions, I'll assume."

"Amaryllis-"

"It's alright, Mr Wright," she said tepidly, as though he was the one who was suffering. "You're kind, but I don't have much use for that. You may as well keep going."

Without taking his eyes from hers, Phoenix set his pen down.

It was an escape hatch, wordlessly left ajar.

Amaryllis looked back at him, unmoved.

Unable to shake the feeling that he was making the wrong choice, Phoenix reluctantly resumed the interview.

"Aristocracy, huh." He dropped back in his seat, and let himself ask something he was genuinely curious about. "What does that even _mean_, these days?"

"Less than you might think," Amaryllis admitted. She had recovered frighteningly quickly- Phoenix could have been imagining her raw edges, like a scoured-clean canvas, frayed hems being methodically snipped and tucked and fastened into the pretence that they didn't exist as he watched. "You have to understand, the social fabric of the UK has altered dramatically in the past century. Unlike the French or the Russians, our revolutions were largely quiet and bloodless. Nobility exists, but diminished, much like our monarchy. Not all fates were equal. Some lines collapsed entirely, others weathered the storm and remain mostly intact. Most aristocratic houses lost a great deal during the World Wars. Heirs and spares were killed in combat. Fortunes were depleted. Social mobility was increasing. The idea of aristocracy was becoming outdated and distasteful to the public, who were still suffering under rationing. Stately homes were ever more expensive to maintain due to crushing property taxes, narrow profit margins from land, and appeal of high-paid employment opportunities in the city. And as for politics- well. The powers of the House of Lords were curtailed in 1911- with the notable support of one of my ancestors- were further limited again in 1949, and exactly fifty years later, most hereditary peerages were abolished."

"Wait a second. Your ancestor argued in favour of _limiting_ their own powers?" Phoenix said incredulously.

To his surprise and gratification, his choice to focus on that detail hooked an expression of fierce affection out of her, ardent pride in the tilt of her jaw.

"He was a very principled man. Dauntless, when it came to risking personal reputation for the sake of what he believed to be right and just. He also happened to be an esteemed criminal barrister, known and admired throughout the Great British Empire, who had some highly studied opinions regarding the law. Besides," she added, "he knew _exactly_ what kind of men his peers were."

"Huh." Phoenix found himself envisioning a male counterpart to Amaryllis; an aristocrat of the darkly romantic Victorian era, well-mannered yet unwilling to suffer fools lightly, impervious to the outrage of his fellow noblemen and cutting them down with a graceful, ruthless wit. It was ridiculously easy to imagine. "On the spectrum of _complete collapse_ and _mostly intact_, where did your family fall? How were they different from others?"

Amaryllis smirked coyly, and gave an impossibly refined shrug. "_Res ipsa loquitur_."

Phoenix bit down a sincere laugh. _Heh, alright_, he thought, _not bad, Lady Amaryllis_.

"Other aristocratic lines were in dire straits by the fifties. They gutted their manors, hawked the contents to the _nouveau riche_, sold their stately homes off by the brick, auctioned the empty plot off to property developers. Or, if they survived for long enough, they entrusted their ancestral seat to the National Trust or English Heritage, for them to preserve as icons of cultural heritage. On the other hand, Eurydice Hall may be open to visitors for most of the year, but it still belongs to us. The family has its own private wing where we remain in residence to date. And, of course, the British government is willing to act on our behalf even outside its sovereignty. Instead of clinging to hollow pride and the illusion of lasting in perpetuity, my ancestors recognised that they faced the choice of _adapt or die_. They made compromises, modernised, even when it was considered unstylish or undignified by _le beau monde_. They were willing to actively contribute to society rather than passively exploiting it, and earn the respect and esteem that other houses considered their right. It wasn't seamless, or perfect, but it was a constant effort."

Phoenix clicked his pen mindlessly, nodding slowly. "Your family remained in a prominent position, and kept ownership this property- Eurydice Hall. Ruby would be responsible for it as the main beneficiary of your father's will, right? Would that have been her main duty as the countess?"

"More or less."

"More or_ less_?" He repeated. "You know, when people say that, they usually mean _more_."

"It's an oversimplification. Eurydice alone involves a complex set of responsibilities. There are the other assets to consider as well. But, it's close enough."

Instinct told Phoenix that feeding the curiosity currently gnawing away at him was a horrible idea.

Unfortunately, he was in possession of a unique variety of stubbornness that frequently ran counter to good sense, stashing him in the trunk and driving him in the opposite direction while waving a cheerful farewell to self-preservation in the rearview mirror.

"Can you tell me more about these assets?"

Catching Amaryllis' dubious look, Phoenix rubbed the back of his neck with a self-deprecating grin.

"You were right, earlier. This is pretty foreign to me. I guess I'm trying to understand. Ruby's position, and yours, that is. What you grew up with. What it really means."

Amaryllis didn't waver, patently unconvinced- but obliged with ominous alacrity. "If you insist."

_Wait a second. Am I going to regret this?_ Phoenix abruptly recalled the smirk she had tossed him at his reaction to her Pentonville lie.

"First: Eurydice Hall. The ancestral seat, built in the English Baroque style, cousin to Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard, and Chatsworth House. Construction began in 1687, completed circa 1798. Sections have been added and rebuilt since, but the original architecture by Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh was left intact. First and foremost, the maintenance of old houses is complex and expensive. As a Grade I listed building, repairs and alterations are legally required to preserve the aspects of cultural, national and historical interest. Conservation efforts need to be timely, to prevent further damage, and completed with the necessary expertise. Next, the staff, which can be roughly split into two sets- the first deals with the tourism side, managing the principal rooms open to the public; the second is the private household, who handle the upkeep of the family wing and its amenities. There is crossover, inevitably, which needs to be coordinated. Third, there is the management of exhibits. The artefacts on display typically belong to the family, but occasionally we host temporary collections, or loan some of our heirlooms out to various museums and galleries. Naturally, this means a dedicated security system to prevent any attempted theft or vandalism, including both automated systems and human monitoring, and the infrastructure that demands. Display objects may also need to undergo periodic restoration or refurbishment, especially paintings, to repair sun-bleaching or preserve the original better."

"Sure, that makes sense-"

"Then there are the grounds," Amaryllis cut him off. "The formal landscaped gardens are extensive, and all of it is open to the general public for most of the year. The greenery needs to be maintained- the orangery and glasshouses need special attention, given the climate demands. Soil and water quality of each section needs to be monitored, trees need to be treated for disease, the fountains and water features need to undergo regular maintenance, along with all of the general upkeep and cleaning you might associate with any public park. The few dozen acres of woodland surrounding the estate needs less oversight, as the National Trust advises us on what needs to be done, but any issues regarding endangered species, lumber harvesting, maintaining power lines and pipes or environmental damage may require some meddling. Oh, and, while most of the old agricultural land was sold off decades ago, there are still a few small tenant farms that rent land from the estate, so there are some landowner duties to the families and businesses there. And _then_ there are events that take place on the grounds- the Cerensbury Music Festival every summer, the Victorian market in the winter, along with various local farmers' markets, jousting tournaments, falconry displays throughout the year. I think there's something similar here in the States- what are they called again? Ah- _medieval _fairs?"

"Renaissance fairs, yeah," Phoenix replied faintly. "Only, you know- they usually get held in a muddy field somewhere. No Renaissance-era mansions where you can pitch marquees on the front lawn."

"And no historical accuracy, I presume."

"Absolutely none."

Amaryllis hummed, a low, musical note flowing from the back of her throat, lustrous as gold.

"Anyway, where was I? Ah, right. I almost forgot about the vineyard and winery."

"Wait," Phoenix attempted to interrupt, aghast, "there's _more_?!"

She ignored him. "It operates as a separate business from the central estate, but it's still owned by the family. There's a fair amount of labour involved- cultivation of the vines, selections of the blends, ageing of the vintages, marketing, wine tastings, tours. The stables operate similarly. They're smaller than they used to be, but horses can get to places on the estate where motor vehicles struggle, so we keep a few, and it supports a local riding school. The family also has investments in racehorses, so when they retire, they come to us."

"Whoa, okay, that is a _lot_-"

"And _then_ we have the Orpheus."

"_Seriously-_?! Okay, you're just doing this deliberately now-"

"Orpheus House used to be the main London townhouse," Amaryllis continued, feigning ignorance, "until one of the previous earls decided it was too large for purpose and, quote, _obnoxiously ostentatious_, and converted it into a hotel. Quite clever, actually- he turned a financial liability into an asset, even if it caused a scandal amongst _le bon ton_. The family retains majority ownership of the Orpheus, and keeps a penthouse apartment suite on the top floor. The _other_ townhouse, Clement House, is smaller, and closer to the modern definition- tall, narrow, terraced, with multiple floors- they call them _brownstones_ in NYC, but I don't know if they're different on the West Coast. Anyway, it's rented out most years and pays for itself, even as it undercuts average housing prices in the City. The Orpheus apartment is used when staying in London, and comes with the benefit of room service. Oh- I almost forgot Blostham House. It's the other country manor, in Reinscroft. Similar deal as Eurydice but on a smaller scale, and minus the vineyard and farms. As for the rest: various stocks and investments, some being over two hundred years old, some as recent as Grandfather Richard's work. That's everything, in a nutshell."

Phoenix glared at her. "You would need an industrial car compacter to crack _that_ nutshell." Amaryllis ducked her head for a second, stifling a laugh, shoulders shaking, lower lip drawn between her teeth. "I think you just described fifty different job descriptions in one."

Amaryllis lifted her head, running her fingers through her fringe and letting it fall back into place. "_You_ _asked_. And it sounds that way because it _is_. Don't misunderstand. It is a great deal of work, but you must realise that Ruby doesn't handle all of it _personally_."

"Wait," he said, train of thought sputtering to a halt on its tracks, "she didn't?"

"Of course not." Amaryllis said evenly. "She has people working under her, with the expertise to handle their division- estate manager, steward, _major domo_, head groundskeeper, accountant, stockbroker, manager for the hotel, the winery, the stables. As precious as she was about the estate being _hers_, even Ruby realised that if she tried to handle everything herself, she'd only run it into the ground by the first financial quarter. Delegation is necessary. When done efficiently, all you have to do is take reports once every so often, and grant or refuse permission when an executive decision is required. Mason was able to maintain a full-time career as an architect on the continent when he was earl."

"But," Phoenix inferred, "not your sister?"

The twist of her mouth was slight, but terrible. "No. Not my sister."

There was something dark in her intonation- leaving Phoenix with a lingering unease, the kind that accompanied shadows at night and the phantom sensation of something poised to strike from behind.

"_Countess of Cerensbury_ is the sum total of everything she wanted to be. She would never dilute her identity with anything else."

That made Phoenix wonder. For all that Amaryllis had been candid about their relationship, he knew almost nothing about Ruby- not even from Amaryllis' biased, limited perspective. Aside from the importance she had placed on her inheritance, and how she appeared to have hated her younger sister until recently, that comment was as close as he had come to hearing something substantial about who Ruby Steele was.

"What was she _really_ like?" He found himself asking. "Ruby, I mean."

Amaryllis considered him at length, eyes never flicking away from him.

"Mercurial." She eventually settled on. "A moody, jealous, delusional, brittle-tempered, self-centric _brat_." Amaryllis shook her head, eyes closing and fingertips skimming across her browbone, as though warding off a headache. "Most of the time, she reminded me of those child-kings of old- a stunted sense of empathy and too much power, playing at being an adult and throwing tantrums at every little inconvenience. When it came to the family motto, I think she read as far as the part about _leading_. She is the worst type of selfish, with an ego like a black hole."

_Sounds like your antithesis,_ Phoenix thought, taking in the young woman before him, her flares of emotion leashed so firmly that it made his limbs ache, an old soul in a young body, who had chosen duty over grudges. _It's like you consciously decided one day to be the opposite of everything she was- actually, it would make sense if that's _exactly_ what happened._

Taking a deep breath, artificially chilled air sparkling through his lungs, Phoenix set down his pen, and closed his notebook with the soft _snap_ of paper upon paper.

"Alright. I think I have a decent understanding of the case for now," he said, clipping the notebook shut by its clasp. "I'd like your permission to investigate the crime scene, if I could."

"I have the _strangest_ feeling that you're going to investigate whether I say you can or not."

Phoenix refused to balk. _Crap. Busted. Oh, well- may as well be honest about it._ "Well, it would be a lot easier _with_ your permission than _without_," he said lightly, offering up a grin brimming with guile.

Surprisingly enough, it worked.

She flicked her fringe out of her eyes with a sigh. "In that case, I have a condition." Amaryllis unfolded one arm from across her chest, opening her hand expectantly. "I'll need two sheets of paper- and something to write with, if you would."

Phoenix blinked, before quickly realising that he probably wasn't going to negotiate a better deal.

"I, um- I have a generic letter of request template, if you-"

"I know how to write one."

"R-right, of course."

Retrieving two sheets of loose-leaf paper from his bag, Phoenix unlatched the slot at the bottom of the viewing window- installed for the exchange of documents and small items, under the watchful gaze of the guards on duty- and posted them through, along with a spare pen.

"Attorney badge number?"

"Oh, uh- 26381."

Amaryllis began writing, penning the concise letter of request as though she had done it a thousand times, dating and signing it with a flourish.

"This isn't me accepting your services," she said, taking the second blank sheet. Even upside-down, her handwriting was visibly better than Phoenix's- _not exactly a stretch_, he acknowledged, but there was something oddly charming about the broad loops and swooping stems against the tight, concise spacing, a contradiction of refinement and extravagance. It was like she was trying to contain a natural theatrical flair that bled out of her in whatever way it could.

_It's kind of cute, actually. I guess she really is just sixteen, after all._

_… A sixteen-year old _countess_ and murder suspect._

"Call it provisional permission," Amaryllis continued, interrupting the thought before it could spiral out of control. "In exchange- there are certain things I can't do, at the moment. I'd like you to go to my apartment, retrieve something, and deliver it to one of the crew members before the end of the day. If she's as predictable as she pretends she isn't, she'll still be at the Eclipse, guarding her creations, so it's not as though you'll be going too far out of your way. And getting on her sweeter side may benefit your investigation. You should be able to request my apartment keys from holding, since they confiscated my personal effects when I was taken into custody."

"Right, got it." Phoenix was irrationally reminded of a summer blockbuster he had seen trailers for recently, where a broke college student and part-time bike courier takes a suspiciously high-paying delivery job, and finds herself entangled in a gang war because of her cargo. _Come on, Wright, get a grip! It's not like it's going to be a brick of cocaine or stolen nuclear launch codes!_ "I can do that."

"I know you can, Mr Wright."

_Oh-kay. Why does that sound vaguely threatening?_

"Only _vaguely_?" Amaryllis questioned, a teasing smile glowing through the mock-consternation like the sun behind a gossamer veil, as she slid the papers back through the slot. "Seems I need to work on that."

"Huh?!" Phoenix started with a strangled noise, realising that he must have mumbled his thoughts aloud. "Oh, n-no! That wasn't- I mean, don't mind me," he said, forcing an awkward laugh and a nervous grin. "Just, uh, thinking about- something. Um, something else!"

Amaryllis bit the corner of her lower lip, amusement creasing the outer corners of her eyes, their conflicting colours gleaming.

Determinedly, Phoenix pretended not to notice, crisply folding the signed letter of request into thirds, tucking both it and Amaryllis' note into the inner breast pocket of his blazer.

Standing and gathering his notebook and satchel, he paused. "I really think you're innocent, you know."

"Do you, now." Amaryllis sounded unimpressed.

"Yes." He buckled his satchel closed, slinging it over his shoulder. "And like any lawyer worth their salt, I have proof to support my assertion."

She raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her seat, re-crossing her legs- humouring him.

"First," Phoenix settled into the cadence of his courtroom arguments, "there's the way you talked about the victim."

"There are few who would call my comments a resounding proclamation of innocence."

"Maybe, but they'd be missing the finer details. My mentor told me something, once," he said. Amaryllis hadn't moved from her seat, leaving Phoenix standing above her for the first time since he had stepped into the room. "_How_ someone talks about something is just as important, if not more important, than _what_ they say. Murderers rarely refer to their victims in the present tense. Psychologically, they have closure. For those who knew the victim in life, though, it takes a while for the knowledge to sink in. They'll often talk about the person as if they're still alive. They don't even notice." Phoenix smiled humourlessly. "Like- _Ruby _is_ a brat. Ruby _is_ the countess. Ruby _hates_ me. _Not, _Ruby never forgave me_\- but, _Ruby _has_ never forgiven me_. See the difference?"

His words cascaded off Amaryllis like water off an oilskin.

"Well, that was underwhelming. The second?"

_Ouch! Come on, that was good! _"There is one more thing," he said nonchalantly, adjusting the straps of his back across his shoulders.

Phoenix waited for her to take the bait.

Amaryllis stared at him blankly.

He shifted on his feet.

The moment was beginning to stretch thin.

"Wait." Amaryllis' eyes narrowed. "Are you _pausing for dramatic effect_?"

"What- _no_!" _Yes, but then you went and ruined it!_ "I was waiting for you to ask what the second thing was!"

"I already _did_," Amaryllis pointed out. "You just faux-casually said _well, there was one more thing_, like you were Columbo or something, then stood there staring at me expectantly."

"Wait, you watch _Columbo_?"

"Stop deflecting," she said sharply. "If you're going to be _extra_ and attempt dramatics, _work on your execution_. And get an understanding of effective setup. I'm _embarrassed_ for you."

Phoenix faltered, her remark landing like a punch to the diaphragm. His mouth worked silently for a moment, trying to voice a defence that his brain wasn't supplying- before giving up, exhaling deeply.

"It's your lashes."

"Excuse me?"

"Your eyelashes," Phoenix clarified, suddenly weary. "They're still wet."

Amaryllis lifted her eyes to the ceiling briefly, as though trying to catch a glimpse for herself.

"I'm sure they are," she agreed easily. "I splashed my face with water this morning, to wake myself up and get the last of my makeup off."

Phoenix stared her down.

It didn't have the sound of an outright lie, but rather a tactical employment of the truth, to obscure whatever she didn't want him to see. She may well have done exactly what she said. But a brief rinse was not responsible for the unique spikey quality of her lashes, damp as though saturated and soaked for hours, instead of wiped dry in seconds.

"You're good," Phoenix said with a slight shrug, "really, you are. But I don't buy it."

Amaryllis smiled coldly. "What makes you think I am _selling_? Oh," she added, cocking her head, "and you call that _proof_, by the way? It barely qualifies as speculation. Perhaps I had the right idea refusing your services, just for the wrong reasons."

"The courtroom has its standard of proof," Phoenix said, a hand slipping into his pocket, the hem of his jacket gathering around his wrist, "but, as a defence attorney, so do I. When I'm meeting a client, it's a simple litmus test: _can I trust you?_ That's all. And I think I can. So I think I can believe in your innocence."

"_Trust_." Amaryllis tasted the word, experimental. "I've always thought of trust as being like a mirror."

Phoenix blinked, intrigued. "How so?"

"In some cultures, mirrors are symbols of divine wisdom," she replied. "But I can't help but think that what we choose to trust in is just a reflection of ourselves."

A distant memory shimmered at him, like a stone at the bottom of a river, treasured and painful, its perception subtly warped by time. A classroom, a desk, set apart as an island in the ocean. Tears that wouldn't stop flowing, cold as spring. Accusing voices on all sides and crushing in and making him think _maybe I should just apologise, if it'll make the stop_.

Then two voices speaking up, relief, the knowledge that he wasn't alone, the brand of _thief_ lifting from his skin because _you can't prove that, stop ganging up on him, he didn't do anything wrong, he doesn't have to apologise, leave him alone_.

"Maybe you're right," Phoenix admitted softly. "Well, anyway. I have my reasons. And it's _my_ trust to give, right?" He sent Amaryllis a warm smile that he felt in his chest, akin to a year's worth of sunshine stored up inside. "I should head out and start investigating now. I'll come back later, and update you. I hope you'll have changed your mind by then."

Amaryllis sighed. A faint smile touched her lips, but it was one of exasperation and grim resolve.

"As you please, _Sir Icarus_."


	3. Chapter II: The Setting of the Stage

_prima facie : (adjective phrase; Latin, meaning _first face_, equivalent to _on the face of it_) used in civil and criminal law to signify that, upon initial examination, sufficient evidence exists to support a case or argument; a typical requirement for court proceedings, and the basis upon which initial arrests are made and charges filed_

* * *

Chapter II  
_Stepping Stones_

.{*}.

_July 8, 2017, 10:43AM  
Santa Monica  
Olympus Tower_

The address that Amaryllis had given him was in Santa Monica, right on the cusp of the water. After a quick GPS search to confirm the route, Phoenix cycled back to the office. He only stayed long enough to lock up his bike, run up to the loft apartment, and change out of his shirt and tie into a plain cotton tee- a grudging concession to the heat- before throwing his blazer back on, attorney's badge glinting in the lapel like a miniature sun, and calling a cab.

Half an hour later, he stepped out into the shadow of a soaring high-rise, highly polished and commercial as a sponsored Instagram post, sunlight glinting off the countless windows.

The hubristically-named Olympus Tower was a luxury apartment building, catering to the endless carousel of corporate professionals whose six-figure salary required them to move to LA for a few months of the year. The place was a literal stone's throw away from the beach, evidenced by the sand tracked onto the sidewalk, teeming with tourists and locals in board-shorts and bikinis; briefly, Phoenix wondered how many properties had seen their market value tank after the tower's construction, oceanfront vistas blocked by a charming wall of concrete, steel and glass. _Buying the airspace rights must have been a bitch of a negotiation- I pity the lawyers who dealt with that one. Ugh, civil litigation_. The weather was, at least, more bearable than it was Downtown. A cool wind sliced off the Pacific, and everything caught in the shade of the palm trees or the skyscraper was chilled to the temperature of shaved ice.

Amaryllis had thought ahead, including the door code in her note. Punching it into the keypad, Phoenix entered the building and caught an elevator up to the twelfth floor, finding the apartment easily, its numbers picked out in steel lettering. After a few seconds, the electronic lock snapped open under the smart-key he had picked up from holding, and he turned the handle.

From the moment he stepped inside, it wasn't what he had been expecting.

_Wha-?_

Phoenix immediately recognised the tell-tale rasp beneath his shoes, scraping on the wooden floors- beach sand.

Before he could be surprised, he caught sight of a surfboard on his periphery, propped against the wall on his right, curved fibreglass gleaming like ceramic. Glancing through the open-plan living space, a wetsuit- sleek as a selkie's sealskin- was hung out to dry on the balcony, the folding doors propped open to the sound of the ocean and a seasalt-laced breeze.

_Hadn't pegged her as a surfer, _Phoenix thought, brushing a finger against the surfboard. A shower of sand fell away under his touch, crystallised salt coming away on his skin in a fine powder.

Phoenix scanned the entryway, the door clicking shut behind him. On his left was a short hallway, two doors left ajar and leading which he assumed were the bathroom and bedroom. There was a mirror mounted beside the front door, strategically positioned to throw off light and for a last check of the reflection before leaving the apartment, the sleek intercom system installed on the opposite side. A row of shoes was scattered haphazardly against the wall, as though kicked off and toed into place distractedly: blue-suede ballet flats with worn-smooth soles, another newer pair that had been laser-cut to mimic white lace, cork wedge heels with soft linen ribbon ties, leather ankle boots with silver hardware dripping loops of chains, midnight-blue sandals with a low metallic-gold block heel, turquoise-beaded sandals encrusted in dry sand, d'Orsay heels made of coppery satin, red Converse high-tops.

_I read in a detective novel once that you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes,_ Phoenix recalled. _But I really have no idea what this is supposed to say about Amaryllis They look pretty typical to me._

_Except for, maybe- these? I wonder…_

He bent down to one of the d'Orsay shoes- the most formal and expensive-looking pair- and checked the brand name printed on the curved arch.

He stared at the label for a long moment.

Without a word, Phoenix set the shoe down.

_No idea what I was expecting from that,_ he thought blandly. _I live and work with a girl who wears _zōri _sandals everywhere, I'm not going to know any brands from her. I think I could recognise a pair of Louis Vuittons- or, wait, is it _Louboutins_? Whatever, the ones with the red sole. And maybe some of the huge designer labels, like Gucci or Chanel. But literally nothing else._

_Never mind- I should just hurry up and get what I came for._

Shaking his head clear, Phoenix entered the apartment proper.

"Oh. Huh. Okay."

It wasn't the obnoxiously large, echoing penthouse that he had been expecting. Nor did it have that impersonal, silently judgemental air often rendered by the weird obsession that rich people seemed to have with militant minimalism and unsettling swathes of empty space.

Instead, it was- nice. It felt _comfortable_, as in the definition of an authentic relaxed home rather than the phrased used when someone was trying to downplay their net worth. The floors were a pale golden hardwood, softened by a dense white rug in the living room, the walls ivory and accented by seafoam and silvers in the soft furnishings and generic artworks. Phoenix's footsteps resonated slightly when he walked through, but the space didn't feel extravagant- it was a little more generous per square footage than most, but was modest enough to fit a single person living alone. And there were touches of warmth, of _personality_ everywhere, ruining any impression of a showroom apartment; everywhere he looked, he caught glimpses of the young woman who lived there, a fledgling experimentally feathering her first nest.

An insanely soft-looking coverlet was tossed on the loveseat, the colour of iced coffee, made from a silky synthetic fur and large enough to engulf two people with length to spare, draping off the sofa and onto the buffed floorboards. Throw pillows in jewel-tone teal were scattered across the sofa, crushed and creased as though someone had just risen from lounging there to grab a drink. An acoustic guitar was propped upright in the armchair, set aside for just a moment rather than returned to its case. A string of cheap fairy-lights looped around the frameless glass mirror, its ungainly battery pack hidden on a nearby table behind a stack of law textbooks, spines cracked from frequent reading- probably belonging to the Themis friend she had mentioned. The coffee table was covered with a sheaf of notes, pinned under a hardback notebook and a near-empty glass of orange juice- a lipbalm-print clouding the rim- corners of pages fluttering and threatening to scatter in the breeze from the open balcony door.

Before he knew what he was doing, Phoenix stepped closer.

He could see handwritten lines of-_ poetry?_ Some were struck out, or amended, suggestions for alternate phrases crammed wherever there was space, scrawled in the margins, bars of music and chords penned in, floating unmoored in aether. _Ah- song lyrics, then?_ The pages crinkled under the dense pencil, almost embossed, a spill of unfiltered inspiration. The script was wilder and sharper- _freer, more uninhibited_\- than in the note she had given to Phoenix.

_I love music,_ Amaryllis had confessed, like a secret.

Phoenix could imagine her camped on the floor between the sofa and the low table, guitar resting across her lap- stunning curls slipping over her face as she scribbled down a new refrain, keenly focused and loose-limbed with catharsis, the reverberation of a chord lingering like woodsmoke.

With a frission of guilt-spiked adrenaline, Phoenix knelt, and lifted the magnetic-latch cover of the notebook, flipping through the pages.

The lyrics within were more polished, penned into complete verses. And they were caustic, and confrontational, conflicted and _angry_ in that distinctly adolescent flavour that became bitterly-belted rock anthems. He flicked through, catching snatches of unheard songs.

¦ _Spitting blood and breaking lines  
_¦ _I'd make excuses but I'm losing time  
_¦ _And we both know your sins outnumber mine  
_¦  
¦ _It's one hell of a show trial  
_¦ _And according to this court  
_¦ _I'm guilty as charged  
_¦ _Guilty as charged_

–

¦ _Crack my spine and kiss me 'til I bleed  
_¦ _I can't stand it when you're kind  
_¦ _I can't help but hate you when you're good to me  
_¦  
¦ _Break my heart, like a lock cracked open  
_¦ _I'll bleed out my devotion  
_¦ _Darling, fuck the safety  
_¦ _I'm begging you to break me  
_¦  
¦ _I'll take the pain, I'll take the hurt  
_¦ _Grind me down into the dirt  
_¦ _Oh, darling, fuck the safety  
_¦ _Just go ahead  
_¦ _Go ahead and break me_

–

¦ _Break the mould and make it new  
_¦ _Use up the pain that you've been through  
_¦_  
_¦ _It's a trial by fire  
_¦ _They say it gets you higher  
_¦ _When it really makes you feel it  
_¦ _And the burn makes it real, it's  
_¦_  
_¦ _A trial by fire  
_¦ _Let it take you higher  
_¦ _As the flame tests the gold  
_¦ _Brings out the secrets left untold  
_¦ _Let's see what burns_

Phoenix let the cover fall shut.

"Not bad," he murmured, rising to his feet, fighting off a shiver.

Past the living room, behind the natural boundary created by back of the sofa, was the sleek chrome and dark granite of the kitchen, installed into the far corner, perpendicular to the wall of floor length windows overlooking the surf. The direction of the windows and position of the sun left most of the apartment in cool shadow, but shafts of late morning light caught wherever it slanted through, glinting on the bright silver cabinet handles, glazing the glass-topped dining table set near the balcony.

Phoenix unfolded Amaryllis' memo, checking the details.

¦ _If you're visiting the crime scene, best to turn a cherry from sour to sweet –  
_¦_ Santa Monica, Olympus Tower, Apartment 1221  
_¦ _Door code – 121001#  
_¦ _Lower kitchen cupboard, left side of the sink- two bags (Summerton Farm Gourmet Gerbil  
_¦ _Treats)  
_¦ _To be delivered to Cherry Pye, costume designer, likely the Eclipse: late twenties, blush-  
_¦ _pink pixie cut, yellow playsuit, white blouse, red stockings. Probably_ _threatening someone  
_¦ _with fabric shears_

That last identifying feature made him raise an eyebrow, but Phoenix had honestly dealt with worse. At least the fabric scissors weren't a ranged weapon, in theory; all he had to do was keep a slight distance and a clear path to an exit.

Phoenix headed into the kitchen, skirting the breakfast bar, and checked the cupboard next to the sink. There was a used teacup and saucer on the counter, a beautiful set of fine bone china with an elegant motif of royal-blue and metallic gold filigree. Automatically, Phoenix peeked inside- and choked on a laugh.

Under the dried dregs of herbal tea were three words, painted onto the bottom of the teacup in gothic calligraphic script: _you've been poisoned._

_Considering the situation, I _really _should not find that funny… But I also can't help but think that it suits Amaryllis pretty perfectly. After all- it belongs to her, it looks like she lives alone, and _she_ was probably the one drinking out of it._

Shaking his head, Phoenix opened the cupboard underneath. The two bags were on the top shelf, in clear view- easily mistaken for some kind of trendy organic snack found at an overpriced niche grocery store, rather than pet treats, _but whatever, none of my business, rich people are weird_\- and he grabbed both, packing them into his satchel.

"Alright. That was easy enough."

It was a little strange that Amaryllis would ask fir such a simple favour in exchange for providing the letter of request. Phoenix briefly entertained the thought that there was more to it, but there wasn't much point in overthinking it.

As he was heading out, Phoenix paused.

The doors to the bathroom and bedroom were propped open by a few inches, circulating air.

An impulse- one that uncannily spoke with Maya's cadence- prodded at him.

One of the most unfortunate lessons he had learned as a defence attorney was that a little disregard for privacy went a long way. It went against the grain of common decency, but shameless curiosity had led him to stumble across valuable evidence in the past.

_Just a quick look can't hurt, right? No rummaging around or anything._

Nudging one of the doors open slightly wider, Phoenix peered through the gap.

The bathroom was clean and modern, set in chrome and pale blue tile. Matte-dried droplets stained the bottom of the mirror over the sink. A curved clear screen ensconced the shower, pops of colour from various cosmetics bottles and cleaning products scattered across the shelves.

Pulling back, he crossed to the other door. Out of some semblance of respect for Amaryllis' privacy, he remained on the threshold, pressing the door ajar.

The bedroom was a square box of sun-bleached white. The linen curtains were pulled back, the windows cracked open, hardwood floors gleaming under the sunlight that lapped into the room like the shallows of waves sweeping across smooth sand, lending the space something that simultaneously felt airy and safe. A double bed slotted into the far corner, the sheets ivory, printed with distressed mandalas in silver and gold. Positioned as it was underneath the windows, Phoenix imagined that, at night, with her head on the pillows, Amaryllis could watch the glimmer of the brightest stars appearing in the sky, valiantly struggling to pierce through the veil of light pollution. To the left of the headboard, two guitars were mounted upright on the wall. One was a classic Fender Stratocaster, the body sleek as onyx, the other a cherry bass, the same colour and lustre as its owner's tresses; a third set of padded hooks were left empty to accommodate one more, probably for the acoustic guitar he had seen in the living room. A slim laptop and a few books were stacked on the desk. A short silk kimono and a hooded sweatshirt were draped over the back of the chair. A deflated backpack was shoved against the storage chest set at the foot of the bed.

It was so _mundane_.

It almost felt little too real, from the creases in the imperfectly-made bedcovers, to the clothes loosely folded and tossed aside on the chest, to the pens and charger wires scattered across the desk. A glimpse into her private space, and there was no mystique left, no enigmatic veneer, something unknowable made mortal.

Phoenix let the door fall back onto its prop, his thoughts already halfway out of the apartment.

Something clattered to the floor.

Phoenix cursed under his breath. Edging the door back open, he ducked his head inside.

_What was that?_

There was a tall dresser behind the door. Beside it, something had fallen to the wooden floor.

_A riding crop?_

Leaning inside, Phoenix picked it up. The short whip was crafted from roseate-gold leather, the faint orange fragrance of saddle soap clinging to it; its leather components were rendered pliant by use, but there was plenty of snap corded into its fibreglass length, speaking of its high quality.

Turning it over with a roll of his fingers, Phoenix wondered at what it was doing in Amaryllis' apartment. He could easily believe that she knew how to ride, given her background; involvement with horses seemed like a pre-requisite for being a member of the upper classes. But he hadn't seen any riding boots by the door. Phoenix couldn't think of any nearby stables, either, or at least none that were easily accessible from where they were in the city.

_Hm? Hold on a second…_

Picking out a swirled texture on the handle, Phoenix rotated it until it faced him.

Embossed into the grip, pressed into the leather in swooping cursive lettering, was a monogram.

_~ F v K ~_

"_FVK_," Phoenix murmured, his brow creasing. "Huh- _FVK_. _Why_ is that familiar? _FVK_-_ FVK_\- where have I seen that before? I could swear I've-"

_\- that the prosecutor assigned to my case has personal reasons for pursuing a guilty verdict with particular vehemence. Not that they're in short supply on the regular, but you see my point-_

Phoenix stilled.

_No. No way._

He hadn't paid too much attention to it, at the time- he was preoccupied with the heap of evidence threatening to bury his potential client six feet under before he even stepped into the courtroom. Even later, when Amaryllis had told him about the diplomatic aspects of the case and the political pressure on the prosecution, his mind had been too busy melting with the revelation that he was _talking to literal goddamn aristocracy _to realise that none of that really constituted _personal reasons_.

Staring at the riding crop in his hands, the leather began to look increasingly familiar.

_\- spent half of our childhoods in countries across continental Europe- Germany, Switzerland, France, mostly-_

And Phoenix was acquainted with a German prosecutor who had the initials _FVK_, and wielded a whip as though it were an extension of her arm, and possessed uncommon viciousness in the courtroom.

_It could just be coincidence,_ Phoenix thought, _but those initials- what are the chances?_ _If they know each other somehow- if _she's_ the prosecutor for this case, then that might be why Amaryllis referred to the prosecutor's _personal reasons _for wanting a conviction so badly. Did something happen between them? A falling-out? Some kind of grudge? And if there _is_ some bad blood between them, why does Amaryllis have this?_

_Although, keeping a memento of your arch nemesis feels like a very _aristocratic_ thing to do. Like the classy equivalent of the photo on the dartboard._

There were more questions than accessible answers, at the moment.

Wavering for a moment, Phoenix took out his phone. Snapping a few photos of the riding crop- including one with the monogram in clear focus- he replaced it where it had probably been resting against the dresser. He would ask Amaryllis about it later, he decided, stepping out of the apartment.

The door clicked shut behind him, locking automatically.

* * *

_July 8, 2017, 11:25AM  
Eclipse Theatre  
__Backstage Area_

"You _again_, pal?!"

Phoenix startled at the incredulous bellow, spinning on his heel- but relaxed once he saw the source.

"Oh. Hey, Detective," he said casually, slotting a spare theatre program into his inner blazer pocket.

Getting through the police perimeter around the Eclipse- a convincingly small, independent theatre from the exterior- had gone smoothly. The pin in his lapel and formal letter of request was sufficient to grant him entry, though he wasn't blind to the wary look that the uniformed officer shot him as he ducked under the police tape. He had obviously been recognised, probably from the Skye-Gant case; ever since the conviction of the Chief of Police based on evidence Phoenix had exposed, the LAPD as a whole seemed uncertain as to whether they should be treating him with grudging respect, or as an imminent threat, and had mostly settled somewhere very uncomfortable on the fence between.

Of course, it was hardly _his_ fault that their intense, oddly genial and highly respected superior had turned out to be a corrupt bastard with a god complex and a disturbing willingness to murder and blackmail his subordinates, but pointing that out to their faces would probably be counterproductive.

With this particular member of the LAPD, Phoenix had no such qualms.

Detective Dick Gumshoe was solid as a cinderblock, subtle as a sledgehammer, and expressive and eager as a gundog on a hunt. A dusty olive trench coat, creased suit, loose tie, square shoulders and unkempt dark hair- the tufts on the left side of his forehead perpetually refusing to lie flat- made him both distinctive and a walking cliché. Despite the belligerent exterior, his manner possessing all the abrasiveness of industrial-grade sandpaper, Gumshoe had a core of marshmallow and a heart of twenty-four carat gold, even if it had taken a while for Phoenix to get a glimpse of it. During their first encounter, Gumshoe had initially mistaken him for Phoenix's erstwhile client, Larry Butz- who he misnamed _Harry_ Butz, and referred to as a murderer, something that Phoenix didn't take kindly to considering that Larry, while a certifiable idiot, was one of his closest friends, and had been acquitted weeks ago. Then, after being corrected regarding Phoenix's identity, Gumshoe had proceeded to gloat about how no sane attorney would take the case, and Maya Fey was as good as convicted.

It wasn't the most auspicious first meeting. Nor was their second: Phoenix, alias _no sane attorney_, had taken the case, cross-examined the detective, and torn his credibility apart on the stand.

Not a great start.

But then, a month later, Gumshoe narrowly saved Phoenix and Maya from getting _disappeared_ after a television producer had sicced her mafia henchmen on them. In the following December, _that_ trial had found Gumshoe firmly on their side, proving himself a stalwart ally. And then, during the Skye case in February, Gumshoe had risked his job in the pursuit of the truth, helping Phoenix obtain crucial evidence in the process. Over the course of a year, their rapport had steadily mellowed to the point where Gumshoe had been sincerely apologetic for having to arrest Maya for the second time. He had been invited over to the office to celebrate, after she was exonerated, and had accepted with a joyful sniffle.

Consequently, Phoenix wasn't terribly alarmed by the outraged expression or heaving shoulders. He was used to it by now- _the bark without the bite_.

"Don't you _hey, Detective_ me, pal!" Gumshoe retorted in a below. Phoenix pressed the pad of his finger into his ear to rid it of the quiet, high-pitched whine that followed. "Seriously, are you the only defence attorney in LA or something?!"

_I should be asking _you_ that! Are you the only homicide detective in the city? At least you've probably had cases that don't involve me!_

"If it's any consolation," he said instead, handing over the letter of request and projecting an aura of placid forbearance that always seemed to work with the detective, "it wasn't deliberate."

Gumshoe grumbled, unfolding and scanning the letter.

After a moment, he heaved a deep sigh, rubbing the back of his head with a wince.

"_Geez_," he sighed. "You really like the unwinnable ones, huh, pal?"

Phoenix smirked, replacing the document in his satchel with a shrug. "_Sue me_."

"Oh, _ha-ha_, very funny, pal," Gumshoe said, glowering without heat. Phoenix smiled back pleasantly. "Well, I'm guessing you're going to want to check out the scene of the crime."

"If you wouldn't mind."

"Guess not," he said, shoulders sloping forward into a shrug. "Bound to need to let you in sooner or later. The techies should be done by now, let me check."

With a wave of his hand, Gumshoe led Phoenix further backstage.

Cloaked stage doors and a sheer drop of curtains, soft and heavy as lead, masked the ugly innards of the theatre's workings. Behind them was a cramped warren, built parallel to the unsuspecting audience in the central house. A narrow walkway looped around dressing areas and makeup stations, clustered with lightweight clothing rails, costumes of various cut and glitz shoved into place and slipping from their hangers. Boxes of props were shoved aside under tables and into corners, cables taped down along the walls in heavy ropes, everything smudged with remnants of pancake makeup and a miasma of deodorant and hairspray. It seemed that everything had been dropped last night and left where it fell, leaving the chaotic and slightly depressing remains of the production, like a shed snakeskin.

The police presence was concentrated down a single branching hallway. Forensics had finished with the scene, and were packing up the last of their equipment; a quick inquiry from Gumshoe reported that a few major pieces of evidence remained on site, but everything had been processed, meaning that any tampering would be made immediately obvious by the broken forensic seals. Gumshoe volunteered to supervise, preserving the chain of custody while Phoenix investigated.

Slipping on a pair of shoe covers and latex gloves, the room was cleared, and the detective and the defence attorney stepped inside.

The dressing room was compact. There was barely enough space to take a few steps in any direction, even less with both Phoenix and Gumshoe occupying it. An oversized dressing table and makeup-specked mirror engulfed the far wall, accommodating several evidence packets, each sealed with a strip of evidence tape and stashed amongst the canisters and cosmetics. A faceless polystyrene mannequin head presided over the disparate collection, set with a silky platinum blonde wig, cropped short and crisp with hairspray, fringe slicing across one eye in a generically edgy cut. Several dozen hairpins were scattered around its base. Phoenix pictured Amaryllis briskly peeling the wig off after the show, pulling the pins out of the tightly coiled braids underneath, letting her natural hair down with a huff of relief.

He could only imagine how long it had taken to gather up every last strand of her bright hair. At least, Phoenix thought distractedly, her eyebrows and lashes were a natural dark brown. They would have looked wicked against the glacial blonde.

Phoenix scanned the rest of the room.

A row of brass hooks lined the left wall, with what he assumed to be Amaryllis' costume distributed across several hangers. It was nothing unusual, for a theatre costume- every item could have been worn on a city street and not have been out of place. At the forefront was a black dress, thick straps framing a square neckline, bodice fitted and skirt pleated girlishly. Next to it was a wine-red blouse, narrow lapels dipping into a sharp plunge, white satin ribbons tied in bows at the elbow-length cuffs. Closest to the door was the long drape of a double-breasted camel-toned coat, and a silk scarf. A pair of low court heels, the same blush-pink as the gauzy scarf, was tucked against the wall underneath the hooks.

The rest of the room was featureless, save for the chair tucked tightly under the dressing table, and a door on the right, cracked open on its hinges.

_That's… weird._

For the supposed primary scene of a homicide, it was unnaturally clean. Phoenix couldn't even see the white tape or rope outline of the corpse.

"This," Phoenix said, slowly, "is the crime scene?"

"Yep! Well, sort of. The actual murder went down in the _en suite_ bathroom, there," Gumshoe said, taking the pencil stub tucked behind his ear and jabbing it towards the door, consulting his notepad. "This was the suspect's personal dressing room. She got one to herself- the biggest. Perks of the starring role, I guess."

"Right." Phoenix turned to Gumshoe, adjusting his latex gloves. _Okay, first thing's first_. "So, I haven't heard anything about the cause of death. Mind if I get a quick look at the autopsy report?"

"Ah," Gumshoe deflated, "well, uh, about that. That- might be a bit difficult."

"Difficult? Why?"

The detective shifted on his feet awkwardly.

"Uh. The truth is, pal- I don't have it. The coroner's report, that is." Under Phoenix's increasingly pointed, suspicious look, he elaborated hastily. "I mean, no one does! It isn't finished yet!"

Phoenix stared at him.

"It isn't finished yet."

Incredulity rendered the words flat and blunt as a butter knife.

The only time that Phoenix could ever recall the autopsy report taking more than twelve hours to be completed was during the incident at Gourd Lake. The corpse had been retrieved from the water in the early hours of the morning, and even then, the main hurdle had been the identification of the victim. A preliminary report regarding the cause of death had still been available before noon. On the other hand, some prosecutors had an irritating tendency to withhold evidence from opposing counsel, with excuses that the analysis _wasn't complete_ or that that it _hadn't been proven relevant to the case_ yet, and therefore couldn't be submitted as lawful evidence.

Gumshoe had the decency to wince, knowing better than most what Phoenix was thinking, and how plausible it was.

"Look, I know how it sounds, pal- but it's the truth, I swear! Actually, there's been a backlog at the morgue for a while now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah! Our coroner's the best in the business, hands down, and she work's _fast_, pal, but she's been saying for _months_ that if they want her to keep up with the pace and workload, then they need to put enough in the budget for her assistant to go full-time," Gumshoe explained, growing increasingly animated. Phoenix guessed that it wasn't often that he had an excuse to share law enforcement insider gossip with an outsider- not that he was complaining. A glimpse at the chaos inside the LAPD and its associates made him feel as though his life was almost normal. "Their assistant handles a lot of the admin- you know, paperwork, taking notes during autopsies, running samples up to the lab for testing, that kind of stuff- but she also wants to start training them up as a future medical examiner."

Phoenix nodded. "Sure, makes sense."

"Right? But on a part-time schedule, there's barely enough hours to get the basics done. Except the bosses decided they'd rather have their big fancy office refurbished instead, and now, they're _really_ paying for it." Gumshoe chuckled, a grin lifting his square features, shoulders quaking. "Heh, I give it a month before they cave. Anyway, that's why it's taking longer than usual to get the autopsy report back. Our coroner's making a point, and to be honest, pretty much everyone at the precinct is on her side. Plus, this one was, uh-" He hesitated, grimacing emphatically. "_Messy_. Dr Goulloyne wanted a little extra time to make sure the cause of death was accurate."

"I see." Phoenix knew the detective well enough that he didn't think it was a lie. Gumshoe was an absurdly honest person. It was a natural side-effect of being so intensely eager to help, Phoenix thought.

"Oh! But, for now," Gumshoe brightened, checking the internal pockets of his trench coat, "I've got a spare of the crime scene photo, if it helps. Seems pretty obvious what killed the victim, but I'm not going to argue with anyone who holds a scalpel like _that_. Aha! Here we go." Extracting the photo from the depths of his coat- thick card curved and glossy with the weight of freshly-printed ink- he offered it to Phoenix. "Uh, fair warning, pal. It's pretty graphic."

Privately, Phoenix thought that nothing could be more _graphic_ that coming across the scene of his mentor's murder.

With a silent nod, he accepted the photo, and flipped it over.

Amaryllis had been telling the truth. She and her sister shared the same distinctive red hair- although Ruby's was a dash more cinnamon and ginger than Amaryllis' strong, full-bodied claret.

It was hard to tell, though, with the way that the strands almost blended into the gore of the crime scene.

The body of Ruby Olivia Steele was framed against a wall of cold white tile. She was laid on her side, half-turned towards the ceiling, curling in on herself by slight degrees. Her right arm was extended unnaturally, stretched out beneath her head. The fall of her fiery hair almost obscured her face. And the blood- a thin film was streaked around her on the ceramic like a sunburst, strangely diluted, impressions of handprints and the weft of fabric sealed and frozen in the carnage. It was clotted on her fingers, smudged across her jaw, congealed in the burnished silk of her sleeveless dress and its trailing waterfall cravat. The stain bloomed thickest and darkest around her chest, turning the silver and peach fabric a deep, ominous mauve.

"She was stabbed?" Phoenix guessed.

"Multiple times," Gumshoe confirmed grimly. "They lost count during the preliminary investigation, but- looks like at least a dozen stab wounds."

Phoenix supressed a wince, mouth twisting at the corner- though he wasn't exactly surprised.

"Like I said, pretty obvious."

"And the victim's identity has been verified?" Phoenix asked, looking up from the photo.

"Yep. Our suspect confirmed it, we're just waiting for a call from the British Embassy to be absolutely sure. But we checked her personal possessions- found her hotel cardkey, so we sent some uniforms over, and they found her passport in her room. So unless it's a case of really, _really_ thorough identity theft-" Gumshoe shrugged, taking out another photograph. "Here. Victim's passport photo. You'll get one with the autopsy later, but I've got a spare."

"Oh." Phoenix straightened, pleasantly surprised. "Thanks, Detective."

"No problem. It's just taking up space with me, anyway."

Gumshoe blithely handed over the enlarged photo, supplying Phoenix with his first clear look at the victim.

If he had been expecting to see a shimmer of Amaryllis's reflection in her sister, he would have been disappointed. An oval face, rounded features, thick coppery waves that skimmed her shoulders, an echo of the soft-carved, slightly doughy beauty standards of classical sculptures- Ruby Steele gazed out with large grey eyes, anodyne and doll-like, her mouth a rosebud pout, her nose a delicate curve, fine as bone china, a Victorian dream. Her skintone was a shade cooler than Amaryllis', more pale sepia than sun-glow topaz. If Amaryllis was a living, breathing Rossetti, then Ruby was a Botticelli; the pliant, curving patrician form idolised by the Greco-Romans to the stark, brooding ferocity of Pre-Raphaelite obsession.

It was like trying to compare apples to oranges- or afternoon tea, cut roses and Venetian lace to crystal wineglasses, black marble and aged leather.

"There's not much of a resemblance between them," Phoenix observed.

As an only child, his frame of reference was limited when it came to similarities between siblings. But in Maya, sometimes he thought he saw something of her older sister- in that particular incline of her head, and the mischievous, pert grin that appeared when she thought something deserved teasing. _The Fey smile_, as he privately thought of it. He had seen a photo of Misty Fey, once, and the subtle curve of her lips through the grain told him where they had inherited it from.

In Ruby, he couldn't see anything of Amaryllis. He wondered if it was different, in life. Maybe, in the right light, Amaryllis' hard edges caught a soft shadow. Maybe Ruby had arched her eyebrow with the same cool magnetism as her sister.

Somehow, he doubted it.

"Yeah, I thought that too. Aside from the red hair, obviously. So, uh. Anyway, pal." Gumshoe suddenly cleared his throat, looking around them furtively. Phoenix raised his eyebrows. _We're the only ones in the room, Detective_. "How much do you, er- _know_\- about the victim and the defendant-?"

"I know about the whole _aristocracy_ thing, if that's what you're asking," Phoenix replied wearily, tucking the photos into his satchel.

"It's _crazy_, right, pal?!" Gumshoe erupted, sending Phoenix rocking back on his heels. He wondered if the detective had been waiting all morning for an opportunity to talk about it. "_A real-life countess_! I'm investigating the murder of a _real-life countess_! Heck, I _arrested_ a real-life countess! It's like something out of a movie, or a mystery novel!"

_Well, we _are_ in LA. _"Uh-huh. Pretty crazy."

"But that's not what I wanted to talk about," he said, sobering into a look of concern. "Look, pal, this is going to get bad. The higher-ups want this solved quick, but if there's any doubt about the verdict there'll be hell to pay with the Brits. The new chief prosecutor's keeping the DA's reputation together by a thread and really can't afford a scandal right now, and Governor Quist is up for re-election next year, so he's putting on the pressure, and if this gets federal attention, I don't want to think about the fallout. This is gonna get _ugly_. You sure you want to get in the middle of this?"

Phoenix smiled. "Thanks for the heads-up," he said sincerely, "but- I took this case on special request. I can't afford to be scared off that easily."

Gumshoe nodded resignedly, having anticipated his answer- then froze.

"Wait. On _special request_\- don't tell me-! You," his voice dropped conspiratorially, to Phoenix's mounting bewilderment. "You got a call from _the Queen of England_ and-"

"Wh-_what_?! _No!_ How did you even get to that conclus- it was _Maya_!" Phoenix choked out. "_Maya_ wanted the case!"

"Oh. _Ohh_. Hah, well, that makes _way_ more sense, pal!" Gumshoe chortled, while Phoenix stared at him in blank disbelief. "Heh. Well, be careful, anyway. They're out for blood on this one."

"Figures," Phoenix muttered, before straightening. "Speaking of which- who's the prosecution?"

"You can probably guess," Gumshoe said, tension strung through his tone like barbed wire. "Chief Prosecutor Yeon wanted a European- you know, someone neutral so that no one could complain about bias. So she assigned Miss von Karma to it. Not that she needed any persuading, actually- it was kind of strange, how fast she showed up…"

"Great," he said distractedly, his chagrin at having to face von Karma 2.0 again drowned out by the grim satisfaction of his theory being all but proven correct.

_FVK. Franziska von Karma._

Despite the freshly ravenous curiosity gnawing at him, eager to finish sketching out the connection, Phoenix was nowhere near done with the crime scene.

_No autopsy report yet, but a likely cause of death. Okay, then, that means-_

"Do you have the murder weapon?"

"Yep! Over there on the table, pal," Gumshoe said, directing Phoenix with the end of his pencil to a large, clear canister, its cap sealed with red forensic tape. "It was still stuck in the victim's body when we arrived. It's been processed, so feel free to go ahead and take a look."

Phoenix crossed over to the table, and picked up the container. The cylinder was made from thick, rigid plastic, designed for collecting sharp instruments that would puncture conventional evidence bags. Inside it was a surprisingly delicate weapon.

It was a solid but slender golden spindle, not unlike a knitting needle- tapered to a stiletto point at one end. The other end was bedecked with a spray of small blossoms, clustered together on the same metallic branch, each flower crafted from mother-of-pearl and dyed with a dab of cerise-pink at the centre. A short, fine chain was strung from the base of the flowers.

"Uh, Detective?" Phoenix glanced over at Gumshoe. "What- _is_ this?"

Gumshoe sighed heavily. "_Apparently,_" he said, consulting his notebook and sounding as baffled as Phoenix, "it's an _ornamental hairstick_. It was Miss von Karma who identified it, actually- no one else had a clue. You take long hair, twist it up, and stick that through it to hold it in place, like one giant hairpin. Pointy end goes in, flowery end sticks out."

"Huh." On closer examination, Phoenix could see the swipe of dried blood on the lower half of the hairstick, creating a dark patina, the metal gleaming through the stain. A few droplets were studded on the enamel flowers. "Well, that's new."

"You're telling me. That thing can be pretty deadly if you get some power behind it, though. The tip is actually really sharp."

"Still," Phoenix said, performing a visual sweep of the room. _Unconventional murder weapon- maybe a weapon of convenience? That would blow a hole in any case for premeditation. Might buy me time on the first day of trial._ "Strange choice. Any idea where it came from?"

"Sure do, pal! That was our first lead! It's part of a set." Gumshoe stepped around him, and rapped his knuckles on another piece of evidence proudly. Visible through the clear plastic and embedded label was a narrow wooden box, carved from polished cherrywood, the strata of its grain flooded with dark, rich red. It reminded Phoenix a little of an incense burner. The dimensions were definitely long and wide enough to serve as a presentation case for the hairsticks, with a tall solid base that created its own built-in plinth. "They're a matching pair- we found the other one still inside. Seems like they belonged to the victim. We dusted the case for prints, only found hers."

Phoenix supressed a grin. _Yes! Now we're getting somewhere!_

"What about the murder weapon itself?"

"We only found one set of prints- partials, matching the suspect's right hand." Gumshoe hesitated. "And, uh, we knew they were there immediately, since- well, the prints were in blood. DNA matches the victim. The suspect's hands were still covered in blood when we arrested her."

Phoenix tried not to wilt, his victory disintegrating.

_The forensics report giveth, and the forensic reports taketh away…_

Before they could spiral too far, his thoughts snagged on a not-so-minor detail.

"You said _partials_?"

"Yeah. Small rounded surfaces like that aren't great for retrieving full prints. And the blood was clotting and pretty thick, so some of them are badly blotted. The clearest they pulled was from the ring finger. The techs say it's about forty percent of what you'd expect if you just," Gumshoe firmly pressed the pad of his gloved finger against the dressing table, demonstratively. "You know, like that."

_That doesn't sound conclusive…_ Phoenix remembered the crash course on forensics that he had received, a few months ago, courtesy of an enthusiastic nearly-sixteen year old. Over the course of a few days, Ema Skye had taught him a lot about basic forensic techniques, showing him the tell-tale chemiluminescent magic of luminol, and how a dusting of fingerprinting powder snagged on invisible traces of a person's presence. It was actually fascinating, not to mention kind of fun once he got into it, helped by the fact that Ema was so passionate about it.

Between court sessions, she had explained the theory behind fingerprinting; friction ridges on the pads of the fingers created detailed, near-unique patterns, but the flexibility of the skin meant that two prints from the same finger were never perfectly identical, and two unrelated people could have nearly identical prints- meaning that there was always a margin of error, and that the courts preferred a complete, clear print to narrow it. Ema even explained the difference between _latent_, _patent_ and _plastic_ prints- while grousing about how detectives called all fingerprints _latents_, when_ that's just _wrong_, Mr Wright, they're being lazy and refusing to use the correct scientific terminology_\- though Phoenix still wasn't sure he understood the difference.

In moments such as these, Phoenix was grateful for Ema's intense zeal for forensics.

_A single forty percent partial, with smudging- and they want to argue positive identification? Ema might fly back to the US solely to yell at me about scientific probability if I don't tear _that_ one apart._

It was another chink in the armour, another avenue of possibility, and Phoenix had made cases out of less in the past.

Setting the canister back down on the table, Phoenix's gaze snagged on a sheaf of paper, stapled together along the spine, corners creased and curled from frequent thumbing. It was devoid of evidence tagging, apparently dismissed as immaterial.

Printed across the topmost page was a title in simple, evenly-spaced typeface.

_H-E-A-R-T-S-T-R-I-N-G-S  
_

"Is this her script?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, probably. We checked it, out but, it doesn't seem related. Go ahead and take a look if you want."

"Thanks."

Lifting the cover, Phoenix flicked through. Almost every single page was stiff, crinkled with dried highlighter ink and thick-pressed pencil. Swipes of colour bracketed blocks of text, painted as a swatch over a single recurring character name- _Lorelei_.

_Amaryllis' character_, Phoenix remembered from the spare program he had picked up from the foyer, having taken note of the principal characters. _The protagonist of _Heartstrings_\- a musical genius and prodigy composer being hailed as _the New Mozart_. Navigating the complex politics of her prestigious music school, she tries to find her voice without succumbing to the pressure of expectation, while dealing with polished rival Cecily and mysterious love interest Linus._

From the memo and the notes in her apartment, Phoenix immediately recognised Amaryllis' strong, loping hand. Countless annotations were packed into the margins, attached to lines of dialogue and stage directions. A quick skim-read revealed them to be directorial notes- detailed, and most likely of her own creation, expanding on gestures, internal thoughts, vocal tones, quirks that augmented scripted actions and bought the character to life in the space between the lines. There were only a few sections of pristine page, where Lorelei wasn't in the scene. Those few were accompanied by minimal remarks such as _minor costume change_, or _collect instrument_.

_So she was onstage for almost the entire show,_ Phoenix concluded, letting the pages fall, _and when she wasn't, she was occupied with something. That's a perfect alibi. If I can somehow prove that the murder took place when there were literally hundreds of witnesses to verify her whereabouts- no, first, I need to figure out how much they have on Amaryllis. They have the murder weapon and clear opportunity- but what else?_

"It was a pretty quick arrest, right?" Phoenix asked offhandedly.

"Oh, yeah," Gumshoe confirmed easily, "we put cuffs on her almost as soon as we got here. I mean, we had plenty of evidence. There was a witness right there who _literally _caught her red-handed."

"Right. The eyewitness. They must have been one of the cast or crew, right?" Phoenix prompted, aiming for an air of vague, insignificant interest.

"Sorry, pal," the detective said with a grin. "Being prepped at the Prosecutor's Office as we speak. Can't tell you any more than I already have, we're on lockdown for this one."

_Of course,_ he sighed internally, leaning against the dressing table. He shouldn't have expected anything less from von Karma; she would probably keep the witness under armed guard until the second she put them on the stand, and coach them to keep their mouth shut about anything inconvenient to her case under threat of becoming acquainted with her bullwhip.

Still, being locked out of the loop was a familiar situation, and Phoenix knew how to work around it.

"I take it you didn't make an arrest based on the word of a single witness, though."

Gumshoe looked affronted by the suggestion. _Gotcha._

"Of course not, pal! Who do you think we are?! Actually, it was something at the scene-" he nodded towards the bathroom, "can't see it in the photo I gave you, but- well, it pretty much convinced us that we had our man. Er, woman. Might as well see for yourself. Seems our victim left us a clue."

Phoenix hesitated, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. After a moment of indecision, he moved, stepping towards the bathroom.

Swinging the door open, he flicked the light switch on with a single gloved finger. The overhead bulbs warmed and flickered on.

There was a certain distance rendered by the impassive lens of a camera, one that separated the observer of a photograph from the scene it had captured.

In person, the sight of the crime scene struck deep, like a kitchen knife to the eye socket.

The floor was bathed in a wash of blood, smeared by a violent struggle. The corpse had been removed by the coroner, an unnatural void in the stain and a serrated outline of white tape marking where the victim fell. The bathroom itself was more of a wetroom; every inch of the limited space had be utilised, tiled from wall to wall, a flimsy curtain installed to separate the sink, toilet and mirror from the spray instead of a defined shower cubicle.

Beyond the borders of the photograph, Phoenix could see how the blood had seeped across the sloped floor, away from Ruby's court heels and towards the shower drain, thinner and more diluted the closer its proximity to the grate.

It took Phoenix a few seconds before he noticed it.

There was a strange daubing of blood, inches from the silhouette of Ruby's right hand- the one that had been extended, even as the rest of her curled in on itself.

Phoenix knelt. Near the tips of where Ruby's fingers had been, oxidised and darkened, was a dying message.

_J-A-M-I-E - A  
_

The final letter, after the _A_, was unfinished- a single stem, with a faltering downward arch, marking the moment its author lost the last of her strength and succumbed to her injuries. The shape it made was akin to an upright scythe. _How fitting, _Phoenix thought with a ripple of dark humour.

"_Jamie A_," Phoenix read aloud, forearm resting across his knee, swivelling on the balls of his feet to look at Gumshoe, who was hovering in the open doorway. "What does it mean?"

Gumshoe spluttered. "_What does it_-?! Come _on_, pal, you can't be serious! That's_ her_ _name_! _Jaime_! And that, there- it's an _A_ and the start of an _M_, as in _Amaryllis_! The victim wrote her killer's name in her dying moments, pal!"

Phoenix started. He had forgotten that _Amaryllis_ wasn't actually his client's first name.

Then it sunk in, like rubbing alcohol in an open wound.

A message in blood, left by a dying victim.

_Again._

The parallels were beginning to stack up, and Phoenix wasn't sure what it meant.

Of course, while a dying message in blood seemed as damning as it could get, Phoenix had learned to season supposedly decisive evidence heavily with salt before he was willing to swallow it. In Maya's trial, the witness had been lying through her teeth, and the message had been faked by the true culprit in an attempt to cover his tracks. The _other_ message in blood, from the Skye case, had been exactly the same- forged, to throw suspicion on an innocent party.

Coincidentally, both killers were remorseless blackmailers who had committed murder to shut the victim up. Redd White and Damon Gant must get along _swimmingly_ if they shared a jail cell.

Still, Phoenix wasn't willing to bet everything on getting lucky a third time.

"Is this everything?"

Lifting his head, Gumshoe somehow managed to look both smug and apologetic.

An ominous chill skittered across Phoenix's shoulders.

_Bad,_ his instincts decided eloquently. _Much bad. Very bad._

But he had never gotten anywhere by ignoring the facts. Obliterating them with contradictions, sure, but information was the currency of the courtroom, and he needed _more_ before he could transmute it into _less_.

He sighed deeply. "Just show me."

Snapping the bathroom light off, Phoenix followed Gumshoe as they exited the dressing room, stripping off his latex gloves as they walked. They retraced their previous path back down the hallway, halting at the mouth of where the narrow passage broke away into the open main area, like a stream reaching a coastal delta.

"Right," Gumshoe said, gesturing up to where the far wall met the ceiling. "See that, pal?"

Phoenix followed his line of sight.

Mounted high on the wall, its white casing blending into the paint so that the eye would usually pass clean over it, was a security camera.

"Yeah," he said, the gears already turning in his mind like the workings of a flour mill, grinding raw input to finely sifted conclusions. "Still photos or running footage?"

"Footage- full colour, high resolution. See, this is the only way in or out of this hallway," Gumshoe explained, "and _that_ camera is set up to monitor it. It's kind of an unofficial restricted area. Only the three main cast members, a props coordinator, and the head costume designer were allowed down here- and the victim, who had a VIP pass."

"Let me guess," Phoenix intoned dryly, "no one else was caught entering or leaving the area except for those specific people."

"Got it in one, pal."

Phoenix bought a hand to his jaw, trying to calculate whether this would help or hinder his case. Barring the existence of any secret passageways, absurdly spacious air vents, or disguises convincing enough to pass muster on high-resolution footage, the pool of potential suspects had just dried up like a reservoir in a drought. Conversely, however- he could now count the number of candidates for the identity of the real killer on one hand, making it far easier for him to identify and corner the real culprit.

Since Amaryllis was innocent, it had to be one of the others allowed access to the hallway.

And there was only one static camera. If there was a blind spot, or the view was blocked, no matter how briefly- that was another advantage, another window of opportunity for him to break open.

"Mind if I get a copy of the footage? Oh," Phoenix cut himself off. "And before I forget, I'd like to check something on the defendant's phone, if that's possible."

"Yeah, no problem," Gumshoe said with a solicitous shrug, coat shifting across his shoulders with the motion. "Come down to the station later. The tech guys are doing their digital forensics thing- you know, checking deleted data and search history and stuff like that- but you should be able to get five minutes. I'll have a copy of the security footage made by then."

"Thanks, Detective," Phoenix said with genuine warmth, "I appreciate it."

Gumshoe grinned, his whole frame lifting with pride. "Heh, like I said, pal-"

"_Detective Gumshoe, sir!_"

A uniformed officer hovered a few yards away, holding a tablet.

Gumshoe raised a hand in acknowledgement. "Be there in a sec!" He called back, turning to Phoenix. "Well, duty calls, pal. You need anything else before I head off?"

Phoenix remembered the packages in his satchel. "Actually," he said, "is any of the cast or crew still around? I'm looking for the costume designer, specifically."

"The costume designer? Huh. As a matter of fact-" Gumshoe turned, nodding down the restricted hallway, "door right at the end of the hall, can't miss it. We told her she could head home after she was questioned last night, but she kind of, uh- _refused_. She didn't see anything important to do with the crime, but you're welcome to talk to her if you want. Not sure what you're going to get out of her, though. Bit of a tough cookie, that one."

_Turn a cherry from sour to sweet_, Phoenix recalled from Amaryllis' memo. Perhaps, while she wasn't opening any doors for him, she was willing to toss him the keys- if he was willing to catch them.

"Right. Thanks for all your help, Detective."

"No problem, pal. But, uh, hey," Gumshoe leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper, "be careful. I mean, I don't think she'll be at the scene again anytime soon, since she was here earlier- but if you see _you-know-who_ around, try to steer clear. She's still on the warpath, after last time."

"Got it," Phoenix said quietly. "You be careful too, Detective. I can't imagine this case is going to be any easier for you."

"Heh, don't worry about me, pal! I do this for a living, remember?"

With a cheery wave, Gumshoe stepped away to see what his colleague wanted, leaving Phoenix to his own devices.


	4. Chapter III: Unstitch a Sugarcoat

_advocate : (transitive verb) to support, speak or write in favour of; (noun) someone who acts or intercedes on behalf of another; (noun; law) a legal representative who pleads another's case in a legal forum, such as a court of law_

* * *

Chapter III  
_Unstitch a Sugarcoat_

.{*}.

_July 8, 2017, 11:51AM  
Eclipse Theatre  
Costume Workshop_

After Gumshoe left, Phoenix took a moment to step against the wall and write down everything he had discovered so far, making an abridged evidence list at the start of his case notes before the finer details could slip through his fingers. There was a security in keeping his own notes, even knowing that almost everything he needed would be neatly collated into the court record later alongside copies of photos and official reports from the police's discovery dossier- assuming that he could persuade Amaryllis to keep him on as her attorney, of course. Given that she had already dispensed temporary permission for him to investigate, he was fairly optimistic that he could wear her down.

If he had to, he'd sic Maya on her.

Checking the time, Phoenix regrouped. The plan was simple. It was the kind of textbook answer that Mia would have expected from him when he first began apprenticing at her offices, and she was getting him to start thinking like a lawyer. It was made of the kind of straightforward, straitlaced logic that tasted like spearmint and taxes.

_Find the costume designer, talk to her, go back to the office and debrief with Maya._ Simple enough.

Naturally, it disintegrated immediately upon implementation.

"_The hell are you?!_"

"_Gah_!"

Phoenix spun around, and quickly slammed back against the door, narrowly dodging the open blades of the scissors being brandished at his throat.

_Where the heck did she come from?!_

The hallway had been empty seconds ago- Phoenix was certain, because he had checked behind him several times after his knocks went unanswered. The forensics team had collected the last pieces of evidence from the crime scene, and an officer had sealed Amaryllis' dressing room with tape before dispersing, leaving Phoenix alone in the dressing room corridor. After a few minutes of waiting, he had decided to test the workshop door, to check if it was open.

He had barely touched the handle when, as though summoned by arcane ritual, _she_ had appeared behind him, wielding a pair of scissors with blades the size of daggers.

The woman on the other end of the weapon was petite- a blossom-pink pixie of a woman, shorter than Phoenix by more than a head- but her entire form brimmed with a disorienting, undiluted vitriol, the kind that was usually reserved for LA traffic during rush hour, blazing and close as the heat and fumes generated by idling engines.

"_Tch_, what is this? _Corporate espionage_?" She snarled, a hand on her hip, scissors flashing dangerously. "Well guess what, _buddy_, you can go tell your Armani-wearing overlords that they will pry my designs from my _cold, dead hands_-"

"N-no, wait, wait! This is some kind of misunderstanding!" Phoenix insisted, pinned against the door, both hands raised in the universal gesture of surrender. "I'm-"

Drawing up short, Phoenix registered what he was seeing.

Unfiltered rage aside, his assailant was everything light, bright, and sparkling, a confection of primary colours and inoffensive pop songs on the radio. Marble-round eyes glittered from behind a heavy fringe, her cropped locks the exact shade of strawberry ice cream, pinned back with a barrette in the shape of a pair of cherries. Her playsuit was pastel yellow, the colour of butter creamed with sugar, a row of candy-red buttons running down the centre; the straps on either side of the heart-shaped neckline looped into a halter, tucked under the open collar of the white blouse underneath, short sleeves capped and light as a dollop of whipped cream. The tops of her berry-red high socks- one patterned with a lattice motif, the other with horizontal bars- almost reached the hems of her shorts, leaving a few inches of skin bare. A tape measure was draped around her neck, and a pincushion was strapped to her wrist, bristling with pins of varying lengths and potential lethality.

She looked like the presenter of a saccharine children's show- but the description was oddly familiar. _Late twenties, blush-pink pixie cut, yellow playsuit, white blouse, red stockings. Probably_ _threatening someone with fabric shears._

_Aha. Then, this is-?_

"Um, sorry, but," Phoenix said tentatively, "are you Cherry Pye?"

Her eyes narrowed. She _snipped_ the fabric shears with a crisp rasp of metal on metal.

"I suggest you leave before I cut that dollar-store suit of yours to ribbons."

_Was that a yes?_ Phoenix eyed the blades pointed at the tender underside of his chin warily. _Scissors aren't ranged weapons_, he remembered his earlier thoughts bitterly. _Nice one, Past Phoenix, you just _had_ to go and jinx it._

"Look, Miss Pye. I'm not here for- _whatever_ it is you think I'm here for," Phoenix said, deploying his calmest and most reasonable lawyer-voice. "I'm an attorney. I'm just here to give you something at the request of my client-"

She hissed through her teeth, hackles raised. "_What_? Court papers? A subpoena? Some _generous offer I can't refuse_, you _hired goon_-"

"_No_," Phoenix interrupted, sliding his satchel from his shoulders and grabbing the gerbil treats he had retrieved from Amaryllis' kitchen, "these."

Still glaring up at him, Cherry snapped them out of his grip without even looking. At the unexpected crackle of packaging under her fingers, Cherry halted, aggression guttering with bewilderment, and looked down.

A long, uncomfortable silence ensued. Phoenix held his breath, wondering if it was possible to phase his entire body into the door as a safety precaution.

"_Huh_." Cherry drawled out.

She stepped back from Phoenix. With a clean slice of her shears, she snipped the top off one of the bags. Holstering the scissors in a loop of fabric sewn at her right hip, she shoved a hand into the bag, rummaging.

Phoenix spotted a twitch of movement over her shoulder, and startled, almost cracking the back of his skull against the door.

A small rodent- its soft white fur brushed with hazel, tiny black eyes bright as beads, its entire body small enough to curl into the palm of his hand- clambered into view. A second gerbil popped its grey head out of Cherry's large breast pocket, whiskers twitching eagerly.

_What. The._

Unperturbed, Cherry offered a roasted seed to each of the critters, which proceeded to nibble away fervently, before reaching into the bag again and popping a piece of dried strawberry into her own mouth.

"So you know Amaryllis, huh?"

Phoenix nodded mutely. _Let it go, Phoenix. Just let it go. You've seen way weirder stuff than this._

The acid in her expression neutralised, Cherry lifted her head, looking down the column of her nose at Phoenix appraisingly.

"You her lawyer?"

Phoenix, briefly, contemplated lying.

He quickly decided that it might blow up in his face later.

"Um. Jury's out."

Cherry's _hostile-neutral_ switch flipped in an instant, a hand drifting towards her fabric shears like a cowboy reaching for her pistol in a shootout. "What, you think she's _guilty_ or something?"

"No, no! Nothing like that!" Phoenix hastily assured her. "The jury's out for _her_, not _me_! I'm happy to represent her!"

"What, you suck, then?" Cherry guessed, swallowing her mouthful of dehydrated strawberry, clearly unimpressed. "I knew your suit looked cheap."

Phoenix tried not to feel indignant. "Actually, I haven't lost a case so far- Amaryllis doesn't want her case to be my first loss," he explained briskly, "that's what she said. She thinks she's going to be found guilty, and that I deserve my first loss in the courtroom to be _worth something_, whatever that means." _I'm not sure I fully understand it, so you'd have to ask her about it…_

Cherry paused, and rolled her eyes in understanding.

"_Ohh_," she dragged the vowel out, shaping it into an emphatic groan, "yeah, no, I see- you got _Noble Amaryllis_. Sorry about that, man. She's _insufferable_, isn't she? Makes you wanna punch her in the mouth. She looks way better in a different costume. Personally, I like me some _Bitchy_ Amaryllis. She says exactly what she's thinking. Usually something mean, but she phrases it so damn _neatly_ that you kinda _like_ her for it, you feel? Or Snarky Amaryllis. She's basically Bitchy Amaryllis Lite. Not as mean, just so completely _above_ everyone else's drama. Or I can even go for Quiet Soulful Amaryllis, when you just know that she's thinking about- I don't know- music, or philosophy, or something deep, and is about to spout a line that sounds like it came out of one of the classics. Seriously, that girl's got to be a vampire or an immortal or _something_, what sixteen year old even _talks_ like that? Born in '01, my ass. I bet there's a hundred-year old oil painting of her gathering dust in an attic somewhere. Or maybe they'll match her fingerprints to a grave treasure from an ancient Celtic burial site someday."

Phoenix made a vague sound of acknowledgement. While he was reeling slightly from the dense commentary, it was better than hostility, and Cherry wasn't rambling nearly as much or as rapidly as other witnesses he had encountered.

Cherry sighed, rubbing the head of the gerbil on her shoulder with a single index finger. It chirruped pleasantly. "Well, whatever. If you're on her side, I guess I don't mind talking."

"W-wait, really?" Phoenix's hand jumped to the back of his head with a nervous smile. "Because that would be great!"

Cherry shrugged dismissively. "No sweat, my dude. Here, let me get the door."

Sidling out of her way, Phoenix watched Cherry unlock the door, turning the handle and striding inside, tossing a remark over her shoulder.

"Step into my office, Mr-?"

"Wright," he answered, following her through. "Phoenix Wright."

"Cool. Come on in, Mr Wright."

The space that the costume designer had been allocated was twice the size of Amaryllis' dressing room. There was a truncated wall to his right, extending from beside the door and set with a frosted window, breaking off to create a separate storage space- narrower than the rest of the room- where a maze of near-empty clothing rails was arranged.

In the central square of the room, there was a large desk with adjustable height cranks on the legs; its broad surface functioned as a tailor's table, dominated by a formidable sewing machine, with space to spare for a garment to drape without brushing the dusty floor as it passed under the needle. A semi-translucent plastic box was set within reach, the small drawers dedicated to spools of thread, pins, stitch rippers, bobbins, fasteners, tailor's chalk, measuring tape and miscellaneous sewing gear. The only other thing on the desk was a heavy ledger, pages stiff with handwritten notes. A folding screen was pressed against the wall, and a few large storage boxes were stacked where there was space, filled with spare fabric. It was a tight fit, but carefully organised by the hand of a professional.

"Welcome to the workroom, don't touch anything, ask whatever you want," Cherry rattled off, lifting herself up on her hands to sit on the edge of the table.

"Got it." Phoenix pulled his notebook out of his bag. "Do you mind if I take some notes?"

"Sure, go nuts," she replied, gently setting the gerbils down on the desk and scattering a handful of treats to keep them occupied. "I have to keep some pretty thorough ones myself, so I totally get it. Oh, and, sorry about that whole- _thing_ back there. Hope I didn't freak you out too badly. I've had some nasty experiences with people trying to steal my IP, so it's a bit of a knee-jerk thing."

Given that Cherry seemed fairly reasonable once placated, Phoenix brushed it off with a light smile. "Oh, it's fine! No harm, no foul, right? But, um- sorry, _IP_?"

"Intellectual property. A lawyer's gotta understand that, right?"

Phoenix gave a slow nod of comprehension. "Right, of course. It's not exactly easy to copyright or trademark a fashion design."

"See, you get it," Cherry said, nipping her teeth into a stray sunflower seed with a crunch. Taking a half-constructed garment from behind the desk, she placed three pins between her lips and draped the fabric across her lap. Retrieving a shard of tailor's chalk and a tape measure from the plastic box, she began measuring and marking notches into the panels of olive-green cotton. "I already have possible brand-confusion with this up-and-coming designer out on the east coast, and I'm setting up the online boutique store, so yeah. Until it's up and running, I gotta hide my stuff from the corporate poachers. Wouldn't be the first time they tried something. Anyway, you had questions?"

"Right," Phoenix said, opening his notebook. "So, Miss Pye-"

"Cherry."

"Cherry," he assented, "you're the costume designer for this production, is that correct?"

"Yeah-huh. Designed, cut and stitched every piece for the main cast, except for the shoes. Also farmed out some of the repetitive drudge work on the chorus' costumes, like stoning and sequinning and whatever, but did most of those too."

"If you don't mind me saying," Phoenix said, proceeding cautiously, "I saw Amaryllis' costume in her dressing room, and it looked- uh, how do I put this? Fairly- retail?"

"Yeah, that was the point," Cherry said with a lemon-rind grimace. "Could of bought most of it at any high street store, but _no_, those Hollywood jackasses hired me to make it look _convincingly indie, but still polished_ for their precious star's test-launch. But hey, who am I to argue with a decent paycheque? Especially since any contract with an NDA usually pulls in a little extra, since you can't use the work in your portfolio and they have to compensate you for it."

"Oh, right," Phoenix said, "the _starlet launch_. Amaryllis mentioned that."

Cherry cackled, covering her face with one hand.

"Yeah, I bet she did." Her dark eyes, visible through her parted fingers and the soft-serve curl of her fringe, had a manic glint in them. "Looks like you got Snarky Amaryllis after all."

His shoulders dropped slightly. "She said my dramatic timing was embarrassing," he stated dully.

Cherry laughed even harder, her grin turning feral, sending one of her gerbils skittering. She dropped her work to scoop up it up apologetically, cradling it in both hands. "Ooh, I take it back, you got full-on _Bitchy_ Amaryllis. Nice."

Phoenix was suddenly reminded that Amaryllis had said no one she actually liked ever called her _Jaime_, only _Amaryllis_.

Before he could dwell on it further, another thought occurred to him. "Who was the launch for, anyway? I know it wasn't Amaryllis, since she admitted she's not an aspiring actress. Was it one of the other co-stars?"

"_Urgh_," Cherry set the pacified gerbil back down, letting it scamper away, her good humour rapidly spoiling into disdain, "you mean the male lead. Our so-called _Golden Boy_."

"The male lead? That would be- hold on," Phoenix pulled the slightly creased program out of his pocket, flipping through it to check the cast list, "Jamie Arany?"

Cherry spat out the pins she had been holding between her lips, sending them flying like silver poison darts. "That's the prick."

Phoenix raised his eyebrows. _Yikes_. "You don't seem to be a fan."

Cherry looked up sharply, pointing the tailor's chalk at him. "Okay, so you know Leo DiCaprio?"

Phoenix blinked. "Not personally, but I'm familiar," he replied dryly.

"Alright, so," Cherry adjusted her seat on the edge of the table, tossing the chalk aside and beginning to methodically gather and pin the fabric in her lap. "Back when he got famous because of _Titanic_, everyone thought he was this beach-blond pretty boy and not much else. Except then he went and did _Django Unchained_ and _The Revenant_ and _Shutter Island _and _Inception _and bunch of other heavy stuff with challenging roles, and everyone was all like _oh damn, he really can act_."

"And then the entire world went crazy when he finally snagged an Oscar last year."

"Exactly." Cherry worked a pin through one of the thicker gathers of cotton. "Well, Jay Arany is what everybody _thought_ DiCaprio was, back then. Except, instead of that Californian-surfer boyband aesthetic that was _the thing_ back in the late nineties and early noughties, Arany is going for that oh-so _sensitive_ soft-boy look that's gotten popular recently."

"The- the _what_, now?"

She lifted the garment up to the light, squinting at it critically. "You know. The soft mid-length hair with the centre parting, the vintage oversized shirts and cuffed jeans, the photoshopped flower crowns- the being all fake-philosophical and pseudointellectual andso, like, _deep_ and _real_, you guys, so _subversive_ and _unique_," Cherry drawled mockingly. "I mean, don't get me wrong. The aesthetic? Sure, you do you, man, what do I care. The interests? Fine, whatever. But this little pretender carries a cross-body bag of New York Times bestseller poetry books with him everywhere, and _quotes_ from them randomly, just because he thinks it will enhance his _image_ and get girls to fawn all over him. It's just a costume to him. Hell, Jay Arany is the _definition_ of empty calories, personality-wise."

Phoenix's head hurt. _I have no idea what she's talking about._ "I see."

"Oh, but Gloria just might be worse," Cherry griped, dropping the half-constructed clothing back into her lap, starting to pin another long seam. "You know, the one playing the rival, Cecily? This jumped-up little D-lister thinks she's Mariah Carey or something. She _literally_ ordered me not to look her in the eyes. Let me tell you something, my guy, I've worked in retail, in the fancy boutiques and designer outlets. You learn the type."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I mean, there are exceptions, obviously," she admitted, placing another three pins between her lips, somehow remaining perfectly coherent- _the true mark of an expert,_ Phoenix assumed, "but as a general rule, real wealth- the kind that comes packaged with class, if not always morals- it _whispers_. They're not flashy. They're polite. They settle the bill without making a show of it. They're usually generous if you give them good service. I pegged Amaryllis as old money the second I met her. She's the type who comes in, _asks_ for assistance instead of snapping her fingers or expecting you to be psychic, then thanks you and picks out something that looks pretty on her, even if it's not the most exclusive or expensive thing in the store."

"But Jay and Gloria-?" Phoenix ventured.

Cherry snorted. "_Them_. Yeah. They're the _nouveau riche _kids trying to show off their parent's latest status symbol. Or those talentless influencers who are constantly scamming people into buying their exclusive limited-edition mystery box for sixty dollars, and try to demand free stuff in exchange for _exposure_, and threaten to trash you to their followers if you refuse to indulge their entitled asses. The type that thinks that _class_ has a price tag and that _courtesy_ is a perfume by Jean-Paul Gautier. Mean, cheap, petty, backstabbing, and wouldn't know the difference between _expensive_ and_ quality_ if it followed them on Instagram."

Phoenix made a few notes, omitting most of Cherry's commentary. _I'm pretty sure most of that is inadmissible in court._ "Sounds like the only person here you actually _like_ is Amaryllis."

Cherry considered this for a moment- then shrugged. "Yeah, that's fair," she said, light and crisp as French meringue. "Verity's alright, but best taken in small doses. Like cough medicine. You drink it quick and move on, never too much, otherwise you start to hallucinate."

"Verity?"

"The props coordinator. She managed the stuff for the principal cast. A lot of Amaryllis' instruments, for example- since she had, like, _ten_ of the damn things and actually had to play them onstage, they had to be tuned and kept separate from other props, like Gloria's fake violin."

Phoenix took the new name down next to _Jay (r. lead, debut s.?)_ and _Gloria (rival)_. Presumably, that completed the list of those who had access to the restricted backstage area; he wondered which of the three was the key witness currently being sequestered by the police.

"Miss- um, Cherry. About Amaryllis. From what you said earlier, I'm guessing that you don't think she's guilty?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not because I think she _couldn't_ do it or anything," Cherry replied, feeding the hazel gerbil a piece of strawberry.

Phoenix could feel his train of thought plummeting off the edge of a cliff. "I- I'm sorry, what?"

"Yeah, I'm not going to lie and say _oh, golly-gee, Mr Lawyer, she's such a sweet kid and would never do _anything_ like that, swear on my nicest silk viscose_." Cherry shepherded the grey gerbil away from the edge of the table with a cupped hand. "Because she totally could. She has the energy of someone ready to break arms and cut throats at any given moment. It's just that she would never _bother_, you know? I get this weird feeling that she'd think that murder is tacky, or a lazy solution, or something. Nah, I'm telling you, if she ever _did_ kill someone? Way more dramatic, way less evidence. She'd get away with it clean. None of this amateur hour stuff."

Phoenix stared bleakly at the seemingly oblivious costume designer.

_So I guess I won't be calling Miss Pye as a character witness._

"And yet, despite believing that she has the potential to _murder someone_," he said, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice, "you two seem to be friends. I mean, those bags of gerbil treats, for example."

"Oh, that." Cherry took one of the pins from between her teeth, folding down a raw edge of cotton, creating a narrow hem. "Typical. She gets arrested for murder, and her main concern is paying back imaginary debts. Noble Amaryllis strikes again. And it's so _stupid_ too, can you believe it?"

"Uh," Phoenix said, quickly losing the thread of the conversation again, "believe what?"

"I mean, first of all, I'm a _costume designer_," she vented, glaring into the middle distance. "I have _one_ job, right? If my design doesn't help an actor get into character- well, a _decent_ actor, anyway- then I've automatically failed. Amaryllis tried to keep it quiet during fittings, but I could tell that something was up. I eventually got it out of her that the lining was irritating against her skin and it was distracting. Fine, no problem. I tell her I'll order something different and reline it, and she straight up offers to pay for the extra material since she's, quote,_ being an inconvenience_," she bit out, violently spearing the pin through the hem, "and when I say oh, no, it's cool, I'll get the cost back from the producers- what does she do? Get this. She says she'll bring me something to say thank you anyway. For doing my _job_."

Phoenix stared at Cherry, expressionless.

"Wow," he said without inflection, "how dare she."

"_Right?!_" Cherry exploded, devoid of irony. "And _then_\- well, we were doing another fitting after I switched out the lining, and I mention the online boutique store I'm setting up. She's interested, so I show her a few of the early designs I'm planning. She actually ends up liking a few of them, which is actually kind of cool, since her taste seems pretty particular. I joke that, hey, if she likes them, I'll give her a set for free if she'll do some modelling shots for the website. She says _yes_, which I'm totally not expecting, then says she'll have to _find a way to thank me for the free clothes_, as if she's not the one doing _me_ a favour, and that _she_ owes _me_ for- seriously, does this girl not understand how basic transactions work?!"

She flicked a pumpkin seed across the desk. The grey gerbil trotted after it cheerfully.

Phoenix nodded blandly. "So. Good terms, then?"

"Oh, yeah, she's chill." Cherry immediately simmered back into placidity.

"Great. Did Amaryllis ever talk to you about her sister?"

"Not a word." She removed the last pin from between her lips. "Didn't even know she had a sister, actually. I kind of figured she was an only child. Were they close?"

"Uh," Phoenix stalled, remembering with ruthless clarity some of the comments that Amaryllis had made during their interview. "Not- not _especially_?"

Cherry snorted. "Oh. They hated each other, didn't they?"

Phoenix let himself crack, shoulders sinking. "S-_so very much_."

She clutched her face, shoulders shaking with laughter. "Tough break, my guy! Bet that won't look good in court. Good luck with that one."

"Gee, _thanks_," he bit out sarcastically, gathering the tattered remnants of his professionalism. "So, she didn't mention her sister. Did Amaryllis mention any of her family, even in passing?"

"Not that I recall. Uh, she said a few things that made me think that she might have family in NYC?" Cherry flipped the fabric over and straightened it, raising it to check the pinned seam for faults. "Said she lived there, a few years back- talked about the pretentious brunch culture, and how much she hated herself for giving into it as an excuse to eat Eggs Atlantic regularly. So I assume she has relatives there? Unless she really is an immortal, and by _a few years back_ she was talking about a century ago when she went through a rebellious phase and was a nude model and ill-fated lover to a counter-culture _artiste_ in Greenwich Village."

Phoenix hummed thoughtfully. Truthfully, he hadn't expected anything different. "Yeah, I figured." _Well, not the immortal-being part._

He consulted his notes. Despite Cherry's flagrant bias, he had sieved out a few kernels of information about those involved- Jay Arany, the actor playing the love interest, _Linus_; Gloria, the actress playing the rival, _Cecily_; and Verity, the props coordinator. Unless Phoenix could find a way for someone to enter the hallway without the security camera capturing them, those were his suspects, plus Cherry.

_Cherry doesn't seem fond of Jay and Gloria, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe they just don't get along. And being a jerk doesn't automatically make someone a murderer. Still, it's not like I have any other sources. I'd better press Cherry for everything she can tell me right now._

"Amaryllis told me earlier that the owners of this theatre are Hollywood executives. She said they use the Eclipse as a testing ground, to launch a new actor before they cast them in movies?"

"Yep." Cherry took a thick spool of thread from one of her pockets and, with a quick tug, unfurled a length and snipped it from the reel. "Pretty much an open secret in the industry circles, apparently. No one says anything because they hire crews and fill out the cast with people who are willing to work for dirt on the off-chance they get a foot in the door for other projects in the business."

"And this particular production was the launch for Amaryllis' co-star, Jay Arany, right? He was the one being showcased."

"Well, yeah, technically. But that's kinda like saying that pasta is the _special ingredient_ in a recipe," Cherry mused as she plucked a sewing needle from where it had been skewered through the strap of her playsuit, threading it with the unconscious ease that all artisans seemed to possess in their craft. "I mean, it's _there_. And it's pretty essential. But it's bland on its own, and everyone knows it. No one goes to a restaurant for the _pasta_, unless they're a complete psychopath. That's something you pick when nothing else on the menu looks good. Pasta's not impressive. It's a base for something actually _interesting_, like the sauce, or the ricotta and spinach ravioli stuffing, or whatever. If it's low quality, you don't notice, and if it's high quality, then you appreciate its subtlety in supporting the real focus."

Phoenix could feel a headache gathering, like a summer storm in a balmy evening. _We're- we're still talking about the show, right?_ "So- what kind of pasta is Jay, then?"

Cherry looked up, and gave him a flat look. "Well, he's no handmade fresh Italian linguini, put it that way." She began sewing a chain of quick, slack stitches into the seam, drawing the excess thread through by hand and removing pins as she went, tacking the fabric in place for it to be passed under the needle of the sewing machine. "I'm pretty sure the producers knew he couldn't carry a show alone, but that he'd be servicable as a love interest, so they chose _Heartstrings_. They were probably banking on the reviews revolving around how _swoon-worthy_ his performance was. But in front of the curtains and behind, all eyes were on the girls. I'll give Gloria credit for that, at least. The girl can put on a show, the freaking drama queen."

_Interesting…_ "What was the dynamic like between the three main actors?"

"Oh, well, Gloria hates Amaryllis, obviously," Cherry said offhandedly. "It's a tale as old as the WWE- the eternal struggle between a face and a heel."

Phoenix closed his eyes, temples throbbing faintly. _Definitely need a break after this._ "Uh, I'm afraid you've lost me."

"You know, wrestling storylines? Face versus heel. Hero versus villain. Good guy versus jerk."

"Oh." The tension behind Phoenix's brows eased slightly, dark blue eyes blinking open. "I'm guessing that Amaryllis is the- um, _face_\- in this scenario?"

"You'd think, huh," Cherry sighed out slowly. "But it's more like Amaryllis was the accidentally likeable heel and Gloria was the fake-ass face. Everyone knows that Amaryllis is one cutting, superior bitch when she wants to be, but her default setting is _cold-polite_. Sure, she's private to the point of being antisocial, but she's civil. And she won't go out of her way to be _that bitch_ unless someone starts something, and even then, she's pretty hard to provoke beyond a quick verbal curb-stomp that lets you limp away and lick your wounds. Gloria, though- she's a dessert that gives you food poisoning. Most people here have figured out that she's a typical social-climbing LA wannabe queen-bee. If she's being sweet to you, then it's for a reason, and probably not one you'll like when you find out. And she's constantly trying to score points in some imaginary popularity contest, especially where Arany is concerned."

"Wait- Jay is involved in this?"

"And I'm sure he's _miserable_ about it," she said, rolling her eyes hard enough that her head tipped with the motion. She blew up through her bangs moodily. "From what I heard through the theatre gossip mill, he keeps Gloria on the line with a compliment and a quote from Byron every now and then, but it's Amaryllis he's after. Probably thinks that her tall, dark and snarky air of mystery will boost his profile."

Phoenix had the mental reaction equivalent to biting into a wedge of lemon. _Please tell me that they weren't fighting over this guy._ "And where was Amaryllis in all of this?"

"Eh. Indifferent, I think?" Cherry said, loosening a knot that had gathered in her thread, drawing it through her next stitch. "Hard to tell with her sometimes, but she didn't seem to care. I don't really think it even appeared on her radar. She came to rehearsals, did her thing, and went home."

Resignedly, Phoenix sketched a small triangle in his notebook, a letter replacing each corner- _A, G, _and_ J_. An arrow labelled with a heart connected _G _to _J_, another connecting _J_ and _A_, with the two pointing from _A_ to the other two corners labelled with a question mark. _A love triangle, geez. I swear, the only thing worse than high-school drama is theatre-kid drama._

"Okay, I think I'm almost done here," Phoenix said, looking up at Cherry. "Could you tell me what you remember about last night?"

"Yeah, sure." Cherry tied off the thread, snipping the end. She hesitated, nose crinkling. "Uh, hold on. Let me get my ledger."

Folding her work into a neat parcel, she dropped it onto the seat behind the table, leaning over and grabbing the hefty ledger that Phoenix had noticed earlier.

"I'm terrible at keeping track of time, especially when I'm in work-mode," she explained, placing the unanchored needle between her lips and cracking the ledger open in her lap, "but I keep somedamn detailed notes, so it's probably all in here. Let's see… _aha_! Here we go."

Cherry straightened, running her index finger down the page.

"Performance night notes. Unlocked the workshop door, released most of the costumes at 5:42PM. That gave everyone plenty of time to be dressed and made up for seven, even the most useless ones. I was out in the main dressing area with my emergency kit, just in case there were any issues. At 6:48PM, I released the principal cast's costumes. Amaryllis asked for hers first, so I grabbed her stuff, went to her dressing room, was done by 7:02. Handed Arany's stuff off to him a minute later, did the same with Gloria a minute after that. Surprisingly, the _princess_ didn't demand an attendant, so I grabbed some extra repair materials from my room, was back out in the main area from 7:08 until the start of the play. Stayed close to the stage through Act I to help with costume changes and any screw-ups. Same with Act II, then I was back in the workshop for clean-up."

Phoenix flicked back in his notebook, checking Cherry's timeline against the interview with Amaryllis. _Alright, so far that lines up._ "What about the intermission? Amaryllis told me that she came to you for repairs."

"Yeah. Well, actually, she came to request the spare," she said, tapping the page. "_Nine-oh-eight, L-A request for spare, repair instead, torn strap on dress_."

He glanced up, interest piqued. "There are spare costumes?"

"Of course. You think I actually _trust_ any of these people?" Cherry snorted, and spat out the needle. It landed on the table with a _ping _of metal. "Nah, these people have as much respect for my work as I have for their entire beings. I made a few generics for the chorus that I could alter to fit if one of them was badly damaged, and duplicates for the secondary characters and principal cast. I made sure to mark each set, so I wouldn't mix them up."

"So," Phoenix continued, "why not just give Amaryllis the spare dress?"

Cherry's expression darkened. Phoenix took a subtle step back, eyeing the scissors holstered at her waist.

"No idea _how_, but the damn thing was missing when I checked. A few other pieces from the Lorelei spare set too. Didn't exactly have time to waste looking for it, so I did quick repair and sewed it up before the second act. For the record," she added tartly, "my seam did _not _fail. The fabric was pulled so hard that it split and frayed- probably weakened by that one confrontation at the end of the first act. I wouldn't put it past Gloria to have damaged it deliberately, just out of spite."

"A confrontation? Between Amaryllis and Gloria's characters, you mean?" _Well, I'm _assuming_ that the two of them didn't get into a real brawl onstage, but then again…_

"Yeah. At the end of Act I, _Cecily_ corners _Lorelei_, and all the tension from the first act comes to a head with the rival-duet, _Dancing to My Tune_. At one point, the director decided to have _Cecily_ grab the strap of _Lorelei_'s dress and drag her towards her during the song, then have _Lorelei _ripping away when she finally grows a spine to start up her counterpoint. There are ways to fake that kind of motion, of course, but- it's _Gloria_. My guess is that she took her chance to do it for real. Since it was a one-night only production, she probably thought it didn't matter if the dress was damaged."

Phoenix hummed, tapping the end of his pen against his chin. _I wonder. If Gloria did damage the dress deliberately, maybe it wasn't just petty spite. Maybe it was creating a window of opportunity to do- something? Either way, I'd better keep it in mind._

He closed his notebook. "Thank you, Cherry," he said sincerely. "This has helped a lot. If you think of anything else, or remember anything unusual about last night," Phoenix retrieved one of his business cards from his breast pocket, "please don't hesitate to contact me."

Cherry accepted the card, slipping it between the pages of her ledger as a bookmark. "Sure. What are you going to do now?"

Phoenix checked the time on his phone. "I'll head back to my office to debrief with my assistant, and we'll visit the detention centre again this afternoon. I'll do my best to persuade Amaryllis to let me defend her. If I don't, she'll probably end up with a randomly selected public defender provided by the state."

"Is that bad?" Cherry asked, setting her ledger aside, gathering her gerbils in her lap. They skittered across the tops of her thigh-high socks, eager to explore new territory, the grey one gave the hem of her socks an experimental tug with its teeth before deciding against the flavour.

"Not necessarily," Phoenix admitted, dropping his notebook and pen into his satchel and shouldering it. "But they're usually oversaturated with cases per attorney, and barely have time to prepare for individual trials. That's not as much of a problem if they're representing someone for, say, a traffic violation or disturbance of the peace, since those cases are usually pretty straightforward. But on something as serious and complex as a murder charge- it's a risk. Especially with this particular prosecutor," Phoenix added, a slight chill of apprehension catching at his extremities. "She's, um, not exactly known for giving the defence an easy time. And she _really_ doesn't like losing."

"I see," Cherry murmured. Phoenix was wondering at the shift in her mood when she met his gaze abruptly. "_Hey_."

"Y-yes?"

"You seem like a good guy," she said gravely, the blunt pressure of her eyes sinking into him like the indents of trimmed-short nails in flesh. "I don't know if that makes you a good lawyer, but I think if you were a _bad_ one, Amaryllis wouldn't have cared that much if you took her case. So, do your best to help her, yeah?"

Phoenix stared at her in surprise. Cherry shrugged under his questioning look.

"Okay, fine, she may not be the _nicest_ person on the planet, but she's a _good_ one- or, well, no. More like a person who's _trying_ to be good, but, hasn't had much practice and is entirely self-taught, and still thinks she's a bad person based solely on her worst traits. My bet is that she honestly thinks she's doing you a solid right now, refusing you as her defence attorney. Probably thinks that she's protecting you or something, because that's the moral compass that's hardwired into her. I've seen it for myself. Ignore the whole _Noble Amaryllis_ shtick she's pulling. Try to get her off her pedestal and draw out Quiet Soulful Amaryllis, she's a lot more willing to listen to reason. Be honest, and be more stubborn than she is. You might get through to her that way." Cherry nodded at him. "Got it?"

Phoenix returned the gesture with a confident smile, bolstered. "Stubbornness is my specialty. Trust me, I've got this."

"Hn." Cherry looked dubious, but waved him off. "Whatever, man. I have work to do, and so do you. I'll see you around, I guess."


	5. Chapter IV: Rocks and Lighthouses

_querencia : (noun) a metaphysical concept originating from Spanish; a place from which strength is drawn, where one feels at home, and is their most authentic self_

* * *

Chapter IV  
_Rocks and Lighthouses_

.{*}.

_July 8, 2017, 01:10PM  
Wright and Co. Law Offices  
Loft Apartment_

Stepping back into the office was a relief, melting down to the marrow of his bones like grenadine drizzled into a cocktail full of crushed ice. It was as though Phoenix has spent all morning under the unrelenting beaten-gold glare of the sun- exposed skin tightening in protest despite the high-SPF sunscreen he had smudged on, the taste of heat thick at the back of his tongue- and had just stepped into the shade for the first time in hours.

Letting up a sigh, tension sloughing off him like mud under a pressure hose, Phoenix flicked the latch shut behind him- even if a client came by, it was unlikely that he could take their case with a murder trial starting tomorrow, but the buzzer would be in the loft apartment just in case. Shrugging off his satchel and blazer, slinging them over his arm, he navigated the reception area on pure spatial memory, rendered sun-blind in the dim office. The place was clean and quiet, the stillness embroidered by the faint ambience of city traffic seeping through the cracked windows; with the overhead lights turned off, the Venetian blinds filtered slats of piercing sunlight across the bookshelves and cabinets and front desk, turning the lustre of the wood to amber wherever it struck and transmuting drifting dust motes to ember-gold fireflies, leaving the air with a peaceful glow that felt slow and sweet, as though dipped in honey and crystallised.

Cutting through the office with a slight stumble, Phoenix found the door to the stairwell- easily overlooked over by the casual observer, and just as easily mistaken as a storage closet or breaker room if noticed- and headed up to the apartment.

Unlocking the front door, he called out without conscious thought.

"_Tadaima_!"

It was a family ritual, a habit displaced from context. Few of the relatives in the sparse branches of Phoenix's family tree spoke more than a few mouthfuls of Japanese, but some things had survived the forgotten root, like a genetic memory. It was easier to maintain those kinds of cultural vestiges in a melting-pot city like LA, where they were far from the only ones whose existences were a blend of places and peoples and practices; Phoenix had countless childhood memories of traditions only ever half-understood. Springtime meant _hanami_\- snacking in the park under a blue sky shattered by blossom-heavy boughs, making him think of clusters of frozen sherbet and pink lemonade, falling petals catching in his hair. Midsummer was for _hanabi_\- picking out a new _yukata_ to fit his growing limbs, devouring a medley of street food on the crowded boulevards, straining to see the explosions of colour and light of the fireworks show over the water. Winter had _Oshōgatsu_\- watching his mother assemble homemade _o-sechi_ in the lacquered _jūbako_ boxes as she explained the auspicious symbolism of each component, sitting with a bowl of _toshikoshi _soba noodles and broth while they watched the New Year's countdown on the bulky television, finding packets of sweet store-bought _mochi_ in his lunchbox throughout January.

What rang clearest through the years, however, was the everyday habit. Walking home from school every afternoon, he had closed the front door behind him with a cheery call of a word that he didn't even understand for most of his life, until he finally looked it up while in college. _Tadaima_\- _I'm back_, or perhaps more accurately, _I'm home_.

He was answered by two voices, tripping together like the bright ring of wind-chimes in the breeze, one clear and the other slightly muffled.

His eyes finally adjusted from the brilliance outside, shadow and shape cohering, and Phoenix took in the scene. The centre of the apartment was open-plan, maximising the space, a small breakfast bar nominally dividing the kitchen area from the living room. A crumpled paper takeout bag and matching cartons littered the coffee table, scattered with two servings of burgers, fries, ketchup and extra-large drinks with ice, with two figures seated around it.

If stepping back into the office was like ducking into a swatch of shade, then seeing Maya was like jumping into a mountain lake, freezing waters closing over his head and sluicing away the lingering trace of sunburn.

She had traded out her acolyte's garb for a deep purple tank top and cream linen shorts, the mass of her fine onyx hair wrangled into a twisted bun that kept it off the nape of her neck, her blunt fringe thick above her eyes, the front sections on either side of her face left loose and threaded with amethyst beads. As the last of the grainy-black film over his vision dissolved, Phoenix realised that she had been forced to hum her greeting through a massive bite of her burger, a smear of ketchup at the corner of her mouth, putting the rest down as she waved at him to wait a moment, chewing furiously.

She looked so cool and relaxed, compared to the heat and stress clinging to him like a second suit, that for a second Phoenix wanted to _hate_ her- until she swallowed thickly, wiped her mouth clean with a swipe of her finger, and smiled widely.

"Hey, Nick!" She said, a little breathlessly, effervescent as a chilled can of cherry soda and so genuinely _happy_ to see him that Phoenix could feel the Earth being kicked back onto its axis.

Investigating that day had been tainted with an odd flavour of _wrongness,_ reminding him of the time he had made chocolate pancakes in a brand new non-stick pan without washing it first, and they had peeled away onto the plate with the taste of something plastic and chemical. Returning to the corner of the city they had hollowed out for themselves, the uneasy edge was scraped away in a single stroke like dry paint.

"Hey," Phoenix exhaled, tossing his satchel and blazer aside over a free seat. "Good day?"

"The _best_," Maya said brightly, picking up her tall paper cup, the ice cubes inside rattling hollowly. "Right, Pearly?"

An involuntary smile already inching across his face, Phoenix turned to the little girl seated across from Maya, delicately nibbling her fries down one by one. Pearl nodded eagerly, the double-loop of pale brown hair secured at the back of her head bobbing with the motion.

"It was _amazing_, Mr Nick! Mystic Maya took me _everywhere_\- I didn't know the city was so big!"

Slipping out of his shoes and socks, Phoenix listened as she chattered about the shortlist of local sights that Maya had somehow managed to cram into the morning. At almost eight years old, Pearl Fey was as tiny, cultured and precious as her name- and, until very recently, incredibly sheltered, cloistered the firmly-closed oyster of the secluded mountain village where she and Maya grew up. It loosened a knot of tension that he hadn't even realised was pressing against his sternum, to see Pearl back, and Maya brighter with her cousin reflecting the light of her smile.

_Safe_, something breathed in the back of his mind, trembling like a clenched fist, _back home, and safe._

It had been two weeks since the trial, and the aftertaste lingered like a chaser of battery acid. The revelation that it was Morgan Fey- matriarch of the Fey clan, Pearl's overprotective mother, Maya's stern maternal aunt- who had conspired to frame Maya for murder had been bitter enough, upon first taste. The subsequent discovery that it was a cold-blooded, calculated attempt to supplant Maya as future head of the Fey clan, and install Morgan's own unsuspecting daughter in her place- sweet, _mercifully_ oblivious Pearl- was _horrifying_, enough to set the tongue convulsing. The belated realisation that Morgan was willing to see her niece _executed_ for the sake of family politics and power was the poison in the stomach.

But worst of everything was that Maya didn't even seem that surprised.

Her mask had held like porcelain after the verdict was handed down. Phoenix kept his mouth shut, and Pearl was distracted by her transparent relief over the acquittal and her many questions about the workings of the courts. Only later that night, when Pearl was safely asleep and Maya had tried to maintain the act with him, had Phoenix taken her by her narrow shoulders and reminded her that she didn't have to pretend for his sake.

He had watched her crumple, held her as she cried quietly into his chest, and neither of them spoken for a long time.

_It scares me, Nick,_ she had eventually confessed in a whisper, hoarse with tears and something that bordered shame. _Kurain Village, the Fey clan, it- I know it shouldn't, but it _scares_ me. They're- I mean, Mia warned me. She told me, to be kind but to be careful, because of the way our village is, with the hierarchy and the fighting for power, but I never _got_ it. I knew it could be a bit spiteful, and catty sometimes, but- I mean, Aunt Morgan was strict, but she looked after us after Mom- and if she asked, I would have- I could have asked Pearls if she would be okay with it, like Mia did with me when she decided to leave the village and become a lawyer. And if Pearl had said _yes_ then I- but she always talked about _duty_, and my _position_, and _acting according to the dignity of my office_, and I thought- I-I thought-_

_You thought she was supporting you_, Phoenix said quietly.

Maya had tugged away, swiping at her drying tears. Phoenix could see her attempting to scrub the emotion from her face- and put a stop to it, grabbing her wrists gently.

_Maya_, he said firmly, _you can feel however you need to feel about Morgan. That's your right. She's your aunt, and you're the one she hurt. But I am _never_ going to forgive her for what she did- to you, and to Pearls. _When Maya stared at him as though he'd said something revolutionary, Phoenix tried not to think about what kind of expectations she had to cause such a reaction. _Go grab some snacks. I think this calls for some vintage _Steel Samurai_._

That, at least, won him a watery smile, one infinitely preferable to a cheap imitation of her usual perky grin. They camped out on the sofa, and Maya pulled _Samurai Summer_ from the shelf- a lavish period piece with impressively smooth fight-scene choreography and a masterfully crafted romantic subplot. By the midway point, Phoenix was forced to admit that he understood why the movies remained so popular; Jack Hammer was startlingly charismatic as the titular lead, and some of the cinematography was just lovely.

They did the adult thing, and talked properly in the languid misty morning that followed.

The first thing they decided was what to tell Pearl. There was no question of leaving it to Kurain, not after witnessing the chasm that lurked under the serene, tradition-starched surface of the village. It probably wasn't his place, but Phoenix wouldn't entrust the Fey elders with the care of a _sea anemone_, let alone a little girl whose mother had just been incarcerated.

It was quickly agreed that they wouldn't lie to her. Instead, they gave Pearl the truth, a few details glossed over with a rose tint: Morgan had made a mistake and done something very bad, and was going away to make up for it- but she still loved Pearl, and they could see each other if Pearl wanted to visit.

It was the best that they could salvage from the wreckage of Morgan's actions. The knowledge that her mother had been willing to condemn the cousin she idolised to prison, allegedly for Pearl's own sake- personally, Phoenix had his doubts about whether it was an act of selfless maternal love, or whether Morgan was merely grasping power through the only route available to her- would shatter everything Pearl knew. While mature in some aspects, there was no way to make her understand what Morgan had done without also making her think that it was her fault.

Phoenix tried not to dwell on that too much. It filled him with a simmering, volcanic anger that could not be good for his blood pressure.

The second matter they decided was that Pearl would stay with them as much as possible. The law offices had the unexpectedly spacious loft apartment above it, and setting up one of the bedrooms was the work of a long weekend. The Fey elders couldn't object as Maya was now a legal adult, and Pearl's closest relation besides, and leaving the mountain to live in the city for some time was the norm for the younger members of the clan, to the point of being a rite of passage. Kurain Village was insulated, but not self-sufficient, and some familiarity and interaction with the outside modern world was necessary. Besides, Maya and Pearl would be returning regularly for their training.

Phoenix had also made the suggestion that Maya emphasise how she was working in the law offices of an _undefeated attorney_. It wasn't even a bluff, this time. Phoenix could and would drag them through the courts if he had to.

Phoenix had also suggested Maya mention that she was returning as the assistant of an undefeated attorney. It wasn't even a bluff- Phoenix would gladly drag them through the courts if he had to.

Fortunately, the elders had seemingly resigned themselves to the situation, limiting their reaction to snippy comments and passive-aggressive disapproval. _Yeah, well, screw them and the high horse they rode in on,_ Phoenix had decided when Maya had conveyed this to him. The thought must have shown on his face, because Maya had looked torn between making excuses for the elders and fighting an irreverent giggle.

Which was how Phoenix came to find Pearl on the sofa, patiently working her way through a large carton of fries and recounting their adventure in detail, with all the carefree joy that he and Maya had hoped to preserve.

"- and then we got lunch, and came back here!" Pearl concluded brightly.

"Sounds like you had a lot of fun," Phoenix said warmly. "I'm really sorry I missed it."

"That's okay, Mr Nick!" Pearl was quick to absolve him. "Mystic Maya says there's a lot more to see, and that we can all go together another day! She also told me you were out this morning _lawyer-ing_, and that it was very important." She spoke solemnly, bestowing her understanding as graciously as a child-empress, setting the corners of Phoenix's mouth twitching fondly. Pearl perked suddenly. "Oh! Did you get our messages? Mystic Maya taught me how to take pictures and, um, _text_\- so I sent you one! I never knew that phones could do that."

"Oh, yeah. It's pretty cool, right?" His phone had been pinging with notifications since leaving the detention centre, only pausing while he was backstage at the Eclipse. Amaryllis' claim about the lack of cell signal was confirmed after he stepped outside, his phone reconnecting and almost overheating with a frantic torrent of delayed messages. Opening the thread, skimming through the inconsistent abbreviations and liberal emoji usage that characterised Maya's texting style, Phoenix had picked out one that was stiff with formal grammar and a few phonetic, childlike spelling errors. "I read them all on the way back. You guys were busy, huh?"

"We still had time to stop and get you lunch, though!" She announced. "It's on the counter. We wrapped it up to keep it warm."

"Oh, really? Thank you, Pearls."

Pearl bobbed her head. Phoenix drifted over to the counter, where he could see a folded package of tea towels. Unwrapping the coverings, he paused at the contents- and huffed out a soft laugh.

Instead of a set of cardboard cartons matching those on the coffee table, there were two plastic bowls with tight-seal lids, ones that could be reused as sturdy Tupperware containers once rinsed out. It might have been part of Maya's surprisingly persistent campaign against his preference for grilled chicken sandwiches- _it's a _burger_ joint, Nick! Ordering a chicken sandwich is like ordering a salad at a steakhouse_\- but he also knew that Eldoon's would have been an extra trip, as Maya's favourite burger joint was in the opposite direction to where the noodle cart was usually parked.

A rush of appreciation doused him. Phoenix cracked the lids open, finding one bowl filled with a nest of pre-cooked ramen, tender greens and slices of roasted pork belly, the other brimming with Eldoon's signature salty broth. He set the broth in the microwave for an extra thirty seconds, bringing it back to optimum temperature.

"Hey, Nick," Maya called from across the room. Phoenix glanced over his shoulder, finding her sitting up on her knees and grinning fiendishly at him from over the back of the couch, "are you wearing a _t-shirt_?"

Phoenix heaved a sigh, snapping a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks apart.

"Alright, fine. I gave in," he said dully. "I thought the June Gloom would be strong enough today that we wouldn't feel the heat until this afternoon."

"Ah, how the mighty_ fall_!" Maya gloated gleefully. "Oh, but I thought _you_ said that t-shirts were _unprofessional_-"

"Is it _less_ unprofessional to sweat through a dress shirt?" He griped. "It's not like I was in court-"

"Hey! That's _exactly_ what I said to you this morning!"

Removing the reheated broth from the microwave, Phoenix tipped the ramen, greens and pork into the bowl, stirring. "Look, as an attorney, I have to adhere to a certain dress code or I won't be taken seriously-"

"Well, sure, _in the courtroom_, but it's totally fine for investigations! Actually, I think it's kind of a cool look on you, for once." Maya peered at him critically, head cocked. "Less stiff and stuffy and buttoned-up, and more- stylish and cool and relaxed. Like a paparazzi photo of some movie star who just had a brunch business meeting at an upscale restaurant."

"You've been watching way too much entertainment news, Maya," Phoenix quipped, heading back to the couch.

He set his bowl down and collapsed into his seat, boneless, and Maya pounced almost instantly, ravenous for information.

"_So_?" She demanded. Her vehemence briefly reminded Phoenix of her older sister, and what he had internally referred to as Mia's _verbal-lapel-grab_ voice. Mostly because he had first heard it when she grabbed the front of his sweater, almost strangling him. "Come on! How'd it go today? What's our client like? What did you find out? Did you visit the crime scene? What about the autopsy report? Any witnesses? Did you get any more information about the victim? Details, Nick, _details_!"

Head tipped back against the sofa- and probably crumpling his hair, styled in the distinctive spikes that swept back from his face, but he currently couldn't muster the energy to care - Phoenix cracked an eye open.

"Really_?_ You can't give me two seconds?"

Pearl giggled from the other end of the sofa, swinging her legs, watching their exchange with sparkling grey eyes.

Rolling her eyes, Maya shoved her cup at him.

Phoenix accepted it from her, taking a long draw through the straw, the soda diluted from the melting ice but still cold enough to bite.

"Better?" Maya asked impatiently.

"Much," he said, satisfied, handing the cup back. "Hey, do we have any iced tea in the fridge? I could really go for a glass."

Maya groaned. "_Ni-ick_," she dragged his name out, stretching it into multiple syllables on a plaintive whine, "just tell me about the case, and I'll go get you some in a sec, okay? Now tell me everything!"

Phoenix made a show of mulling it over, just because he could. "Hm. It is _peach_ iced tea, right? Not the lemon stuff? And we have ice in the freezer?"

"_Nick_!"

"Okay, okay," he laughed, realising that the gleam in her eye meant she might start throwing things at his face if he kept it up. "But I should probably warn you- this client is nothing like what I was expecting."

"Oh?" Maya polished off the last few bites of her burger and levered herself up, heading into the kitchen. "How do you mean? Like, in a good way, or-?"

Phoenix straightened, picking up his ramen. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I mean, nothing was _obviously_ off, but that was kind of the problem. Like- coming home and finding all the furniture moved three inches to the left. She was polite, but she made it obvious she didn't want to be talking to me, and was only being courteous out of principle, or personal pride, or something. And she was _calm_, weirdly calm for someone arrested for murder, like nothing could touch her." He lifted a bite of umami-soused ramen into his mouth, listening to the crystal-clear clink of glasses and whoosh of the refrigerator door being opened, Maya's bare feet pattering and scuffing on the laminated floor. "Not like she was in denial or shock. More like there was nothing about the situation particularly worried her, even though she thinks she's going to be found guilty. The media was right about her age, but something about her just feels- older. She just seems- I don't know. Competent?"

"_Competent_?" Maya echoed, audibly puzzled. Next to him, Pearl tilted her head curiously. Phoenix had to admit that it was an odd description, even if he didn't have anything better to offer.

"Yeah. Capable. In-control, you know? I mean, for example, I offered her the standard template form for the letter of request, but she said she knew how to write one. I only needed something to get into the crime scene, but it's actually formatted _perfectly_\- I could probably submit it as official legal paperwork. It even _sounds_ like it was penned by a professional. Here," Phoenix set his bowl aside, and reached for his satchel, searching through it, "listen."

Locating the crisply tri-folded letter of request, Phoenix opened it, and read aloud.

_8 July, 2017  
__Los Angeles, LA County, California  
__United States of America_

_To whom it may concern,_

_I, Jaime Amaryllis Steele (undersigned), do hereby tender my formal letter of request engaging the services of defence attorney Phoenix Wright (badge number 26381) as my legal representative in all matters pertaining to the criminal case of The People versus Jaime Amaryllis Steele on one count of murder in the first degree, trial scheduled to commence on the ninth of July, 2017, at the Los Angeles District Courthouse, CA. These permissions extend to any authorised associates of the Wright and Company Law Offices, of Los Angeles, LA County, CA._

_The veracity of this document and its signature can be corroborated by myself, orally; by comparison to the signature on two (2) legal identification documents (valid UK Passport, last renewed July 2014; valid US Passport, last renewed December 2016); and by the witness accounts of the two security guards present at the Los Angeles Downtown Detention Centre, CA, who were on duty in the visitor's room between 9AM and 10AM on the morning of the eighth of July, 2017._

_Signed,  
__JA Steele_

"Wow," Maya murmured. Without even looking at her, Phoenix could envision her expression- brow creasing slightly, pouting in thought, a hand tucked under her jawline. "I get what you mean. That definitely sounds like overly-detailed lawyer-speak. So, wait, her name is _Jaime_?"

"Except she goes by her middle name, Amaryllis," Phoenix replied, replacing the letter of request in his bag, and reaching for his ramen. "Not a fan of her first name, it seems."

"_Amaryllis_?" Maya rounded the sofa, setting a tall glass of iced tea on the table, brimming with ice and clouded with a frost of condensation. "Hm. Sounds fancy."

"All the more fitting, I guess." He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, belatedly realising the topic he had unintentionally led the conversation towards. Phoenix had been hoping to delay the inevitable a little longer, or at least until after he had covered the basics of the case. "Oh, uh. By the way. There's probably something you guys should know, about our client. And, um, her sister."

"Huh?" Maya stared at him, blissfully unaware of the bombshell that Phoenix had the unenviable task of detonating. "Something about the client?"

Pearl, hands cupped around her drink, peered up at Phoenix. "What is it, Mr Nick?"

_Oh boy. How do I even begin to explain?_

"Ah, well, it's actually pretty funny, really," he laughed awkwardly, unable to meet their gazes. "You, uh, remember that our client and the victim are sisters, right?"

Maya nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said, "of course. It was all over the news reports."

"Right, of course you remember, _ha_!" The contours of his forced smile were starting to ache. "Well, you see, while I was at the detention centre, I found out- ah- that, um, the two of them are actually British! Yeah! Although, they have dual citizenship since their mother was American, but they both grew up in Europe, and Amaryllis only came to the US a few years ago, so she still has the British accent, that's how I knew-" Catching himself rambling, Phoenix cleared his throat, staring up at the ceiling. "Anyway. The sisters- the victim and defendant- are both British. That's why the news reports were so limited. It, uh, turns out that their family is a pretty big deal back home, and the British Embassy got involved."

"A big deal? What kind of a big deal?" Maya asked, propping her chin on her hand. "Like, you mean, celebrities? Or were their parents important, or something?"

Phoenix grimaced hesitantly. "Um. Kind of? I, uh- _gah_, okay, I might as well just come out and say it." _There's no avoiding it- or the reaction. Get it over with!_ "Their father- he was, ah-"

Maya shifted forward, and Pearl was gazing at him steadily, pinioning Phoenix into the corner of his seat.

He took a deep breath.

"Their father was an earl. The victim inherited the title after he died and became a countess. And now that the older sister's gone, the title passed to Amaryllis. We're, um- kind of_-_ defending a member of the British aristocracy?"

There was a moment of stillness- the slight delayed reaction.

Then Phoenix was mobbed on either side.

Chaos filled the room as though a faucet in the ceiling had been thrown open, eddying into a vortex of frantic questions. Maya threw herself off the sofa and began pacing, the skeins of hair framing her face trailing and snapping violently in her wake, leaping from garbled queries to demands for answers to disjointed shouting with the agility of an Olympic athlete. Pearl was bouncing in her seat lightly, gushing with eager appeals to know every detail, her attention switching rapidly between Maya- who kept yelling the words _countess_ and _aristocracy_ at increasingly higher pitches and volumes- and Phoenix, who had already sunken into numbness after his own episode earlier.

Resigned to waiting for the first wave to pass, Phoenix took the opportunity to eat, waiting for them to run out of steam.

It took several minutes. Maya finally fell back into her seat, and Pearl subsided into a quiet simmer of expectation.

"A _countess_?!" Maya exploded in disbelief, her expression a little desperate. "Countess, as in- _countess_-countess, with the titles, and the- the-?! You're _kidding_, right?! This a joke?!"

Phoenix swallowed a mouthful of roasted pork. "You're handling it about as well as I did."

She launched herself upright, fists clenched and flailing. "But! _How_?! What?! When? _Who_-?!"

Between bites, Phoenix began recounting his morning in full, from his meeting with Amaryllis at the detention centre, to his brief expedition to her apartment, to his discussion with Gumshoe and examination of the crime scene, to his encounter with the paradoxically violent yet laid-back costume designer.

His audience listened, rapt, as he covered every fact of the investigation so far.

"So, we have to go back and persuade her to let us represent her," Maya mused, subsiding back into mellow curiosity, staring up at the ceiling. "Persuade a- a _countess_ to let us represent her. _Wow_. Um, anyway. But- she still gave you permission to investigate, even though she turned down the offer of defence."

Phoenix drained the last dregs of broth from the bowl, setting it aside. "Exactly," he agreed, "which is why I think we can wear her down."

"Um, Mr Nick?" Pearl interjected tentatively.

He turned to her with an encouraging smile. "What is it, Pearls?"

Pearl fiddled with her napkin, delicately wiping the salt off her fingers. "Um. The police are saying that the lady did something bad. But she says she's innocent. So, why would she refuse to let you be her _law-yer_? Why wouldn't she want your help, if she didn't do anything wrong?"

"Oh. Well. I guess that's- hm. It's a little tricky." Phoenix hesitated, attempting to condense his nebulous thoughts into something that Pearl would be able to understand. "I suppose that… when people are accused of something they didn't do, it can be really scary and confusing. Everyone reacts differently. Some people panic and push others away, because they think that if they accept the blame, then at least it will all be over and they won't have to worry anymore. Or they might be scared that even if they do speak up, no one will believe them. For some people, it might be a way of trying to take back control, in a situation where they feel powerless. I'm not really sure why Amaryllis refused, but- who knows? Maybe I'll understand her better once I get to know her more. She said that she's trying to protect my record, but I'm not sure I completely believe that. Some of the things she said were a little odd."

_Like calling herself _not the kind of person why deserves a defence_. But why? Because she really _did_ hate her sister? Does she feel guilty over that?_

Pearl hummed, pondering Phoenix's explanation.

"Hey, you said she has a friend who's a law student, right?" Maya interjected.

Phoenix looked up, a little impressed that Maya had caught such a small detail. "Yeah, from Themis."

"Is that where you studied, by the way?"

Phoenix almost choked. Even if he hadn't been an art major before switching to law, the thought that, at eighteen, he would have had either the money for tuition fees, or the academic profile for one of the highly competitive places on their scholarship program, was downright ludicrous.

"N-no, I went to Ivy U, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Anyway! So, she has a friend from a really good law school- _and_ she used to go observe trials with him, _and_ that's how she immediately knew who you are, _and_ she wrote a perfect formal letter of request from scratch." Maya listed, ticking each point off her fingers. "Then that means she must know how serious this is, right? If she's _that_ familiar with the law, I mean."

"True. But I don't think that's the problem, here." In hindsight, Amaryllis had sounded not unlike a lawyer at moments- precise in her phrasing, forensic in detailing the facts, quick in verbal riposte and evasion, evoking the strange feeling of a courtroom exchange rather than a defendant interview. Perhaps it was something she had picked up from her law student friend. "She gets it _intellectually_, I'm sure. There must be some logic to her refusal. I just don't know what it is yet."

Maya exhaled sharply, gathering her legs up into a crossed position on the sofa. "I guess that lead is pretty cold for now. What else have we got?"

"Not much, without the autopsy report." Phoenix admitted. "Aside from the pending results from the coroner's office, we've got a client who won't defend herself, evidence and circumstances that point to her being guilty, and a complicated relationship with the victim. She and Ruby apparently hated each other, and hadn't spoken since the death of their father. And to make things even _more_ complicated, Amaryllis was a witness to his murder- and Ruby somehow blamed her for being there. At least, that's the story according to Amaryllis."

Maya rubbed at her mouth. "Geez. What a mess. What about the inheritance issue? That's a pretty strong motive. And you just _know_ that Miss von Karma is going to bring it up. That woman uses anything she can get her hands on," she added with a resentful scowl.

"Yeah, I don't doubt it," he agreed, recalling the tactics that Franziska von Karma had resorted to in the last trial. He had no intention of forgetting that underhanded stunt with the illegal photograph- especially since her status as a prosecutor had shielded her from the consequences, while any defence attorney would have been keel-hauled for attempting the same thing. "But it might not actually be that watertight, once you start pulling at the threads. After all, they hadn't seen each other in four years. And _Ruby_ is the one who contacted _Amaryllis_, not the other way around, so it's not like Amaryllis lured her here to LA."

"Ooh, that's true," Maia said, leaning forward with her chin resting in her hand, eyes bright with optimism, unearthing the positives and gathering them up like loose gemstones. "That's another good thing, right? It means that they weren't at each other's throats recently, so maybe things cooled off a little between them." She picked up her cup, teasing the paper straw between her teeth. "You know what really gets me, though?"

"What's that?"

"That whip," Maya said, pointing her drink at him. "You know, the riding crop you found in Amaryllis' apartment. What's with that? Why would she have something that belongs to von Karma?"

Phoenix let out a deep sigh, a crease forming between his eyebrows. "I don't know. But there must be a connection, right? When I thought about it later, Amaryllis knew a little too much about von Karma for there _not_ to be."

Maya hummed in agreement.

Phoenix shrugged the speculation away. "Well, we should head back to the detention centre soon anyway, so I guess we can ask about it then. And if we get her to take us as her defence team, we need to swing by the precinct afterwards- I'll need the police discovery dossier, and a look at Amaryllis' phone. There are a few things I should check out before the trial tomorrow."

"Right then!" Maya bounded to her feet in a messy clambering of limbs, stretching, frothing with a burst of energy. "What are we waiting for? Let's get moving! What do you say, Pearly?" She said, turning to her cousin with a grin. "Ready to protect the innocent and catch some bad guys?"

Pearl nodded, turning to Phoenix with a look of fierce determination. "Don't worry, Mr Nick! I'll help in any way I can!"

Phoenix laughed, suddenly feeling rejuvenated. Maybe it was the salt in the noodles, or the natural effect of returning to base to recharge, but he felt ready to take on the world again.

"Well, in that case, I'm not worried about a thing."

* * *

_July 8, 2017, 02:37PM  
Detention Centre  
Visitor's Room_

"Ah, _Sir Icarus_. Wings melted yet?"

Phoenix strode over to the window, catching an extra folding chair by the backrest and setting it up with a quick snap.

"Please," he said, with that confident, summer-bold smile that _absolutely_ meant he was bluffing. Before they left the office, he had smoothed his hair back into its customary sleek, dark spikes and changed into his full suit- between the crisp clothes, the broad cut of his shoulders and assured lift of his jaw, it was almost enough to trick Maya into believing him. _Almost. _"I haven't even taken flight yet."

"Mm-hm. I wonder," the girl behind the glass said, combing her dark red hair back from her face, "is that hubris, denial, or a self-destructive tendency talking? Or perhaps your ego and masochism relishes the opportunity to languish on the altar of your own _self-inflicted martyrdom_. Who can say?"

_Ouch! Nick wasn't kidding. I think she just insulted him in five different ways in two sentences, and I only caught _one_ of them._

Keeping a slight distance from the verbal barbs, Maya trailed a few steps behind Phoenix as he returned the volley, Pearl tucked by her side and peering out warily.

Amaryllis- she definitely was more _Amaryllis_ than _Jaime_\- was almost exactly as Maya had imagined, based on Phoenix's description: mismatched eyes and a crown of startling hair, her colours blood on gold, statuesque and stylishly aloof in a way that Maya could never pull off even if it had occurred to her to try. Just standing in front of her made Maya feel like a kid, despite being two years older, like comparing a piece of graphite to a diamond. The architecture of Amaryllis' polished angles and sharp lines made Maya abruptly, irrationally conscious of the soft curves of her own face- round eyes and wide mouth, peach-sweet in the mirror and lacking the fresh-faced maturity she had fondly envied in Mia. Amaryllis was clearly the type of young woman- and also the type of young woman whose demeanour demanded she be called a _young woman_\- who had never spilled mustard down her shirt or accidentally smacked someone over the head with a broom while recreating a fight scene from the latest _Steel Samurai_ episode.

The thought slipped down her throat and settled in a stream behind her sternum, like cold tea and Aunt Morgan's disapproving gaze and the pursed mouths of her instructors in Kurain.

Maya shoved the prickling thought aside, taking a seat next to Phoenix. Vaguely, she registered the faint blur of- _something_\- on the edges of her senses.

Her brow creased. _Odd_. The detention centre wasn't a hotspot of emotional resonance, since the turnover of visitors and inhabitants was too high, so anything _not of this world_ was out of place.

"Aren't you bored yet?"

"I happen to enjoy a good mystery," Phoenix said.

"Then go home and play _Cluedo_." Amaryllis parried flatly.

"Maybe later. I have a few more questions first."

Amaryllis' gaze flicked to Maya, startling her out of her distraction. "And introductions to perform, I presume."

"Huh?" Phoenix traced her line of sight, and his composure scattered into boyish abashment. "Oh-! Right, right, sorry- this is Maya Fey, and her cousin Pearl. They're working with me on your case."

Amaryllis inclined her head, her unkempt curls shifting with the motion. She glanced across from Maya to Pearl, who shuffled in her chair, but Amaryllis didn't let her attention linger.

"So which one requested my case?"

From the way that she was looking at Maya, she already knew the answer.

"Oh! Um, that's me." Maya's back straightened, offering a broad, friendly client-smile. "I'm Maya Fey, Nick's assistant. And assistant manager of Wright and Co. Law Offices," she added hastily, in a belated attempt to sound more credibly professional. "Nice to meet you!"

Amaryllis' eyes- one iris swallowing light like a well, the other reflecting it like a mirror- flicked towards Phoenix and back to Maya like snick of a knife, small and stingingly conspicuous as a papercut.

"The pleasure is mine, naturally," she said lightly. Impressively, she didn't even sound like she only saying it to be polite. "I'm afraid I haven't heard nearly as much about you as I _should_, considering that you're the one who selected my case. Mr Wright only told me that you were in a similar position, a year ago."

Maya nodded. "That's right, I- it's actually a little weird, to be honest. I had this moment of déjà vu when I saw the news report." Recognising the opportunity to plead Phoenix's case, she braced against the memory it dredged to the surface- sunken and resting heavy at the bottom of her mind, like a marble statue quietly eroding away to marine flora and water currents, cast in blurry relief by the dim undersea light and murky waters. "My older sister- she was- well, she was killed, and I was the prime suspect. It was late at night, I was at the crime scene, and there was a witness who said I'd done it. If it wasn't for Nick," she sent him a small smile, "I would have been found guilty for sure. He- he really saved me, back then. I don't know what would have happened without him."

On her periphery, Maya saw Pearl cup her face, glowing at what she probably regarded as a wonderfully romantic tale. Simultaneously, Phoenix's shoulders sank by a few degrees, a rueful smile ghosting across his features. It hurt, like the ache of a broken bone since healed.

They had never really talked about it, once it was over. There was no need to. They had both been there, sharing in every painful wrench and twist from the first moment, and the aftershocks had faded into their new normal, creases smoothing out. But there were some parts of their grief that were sectioned off from each other, mutually unacknowledged and unspoken.

And grief was so much more strange and unwieldy when spirit channelling was a factor. Maya had never known how much she should actually miss her sister, as _dead_ did not mean the same thing to a Fey as it did to most people. She wondered if it was the same for Phoenix, as he saw and spoke to Mia more frequently than she did.

Amaryllis watched, observing the moment with an idle sharpness, like toying with a letter opener.

"Were you close?" She inquired neutrally. "You and your older sister."

Maya's mouth twisted wistfully.

"Yeah," she said quietly, "we were. Mia was the best."

Amaryllis rested her jaw on her hand.

"How enviable," she breathed out, suddenly soft as cashmere. "You have my deepest condolences."

"Oh." Maya blinked, surprised by the genuine note in her voice, refreshing as bergamot. "Th-thank you. And, you, too."

The line of Amaryllis's mouth curved slightly. Maya shivered, wondering who had suddenly cranked the air conditioning up.

"That's sweet, but completely unnecessary." Amaryllis said evenly.

Maya shifted in her seat.

"As I said," Phoenix interrupted, steering the conversation back to business, "we have a few more questions, if you wouldn't mind."

"About your recent discoveries, no doubt," she replied, before shrugging gracefully. _Seriously, who makes a shrug _graceful_?_ Maya wondered. _Is that some kind of superpower that all aristocrats have?_ "Well, I have no other pressing engagements. Ask me what you will."

Phoenix steeled. Reaching into his pocket, he took out his phone, flipping through the photo gallery.

"I visited the crime scene earlier today," he said. "I had some questions about this."

He held the phone up to the glass- Amaryllis leaned forward on her elbows obligingly. Displayed onscreen was a photo of a plastic cylinder, wrapped in tamper-proofing tape; a slender, bloodied spike of gold was suspended inside it, the blunt end crowned with a spray of white flowers, each the size of a thumbnail. It was pretty, Maya had thought, even if the smudged gore made her squirm.

"The murder weapon," Amaryllis observed calmly, as Phoenix lowered his phone. "What of it?"

"What can you tell me about it?"

_Open question._ Maya glanced at Phoenix out of the corner of her eye. He probably already knew everything he needed to know, but what Amaryllis _chose_ to say would be telling. It was a trick she had seen her sister use often.

"It's a hairstick," she said, easing back in her seat and folding her arms, "one half of a matching pair. I doubt that Mason would have chosen an imitation gold that would tarnish, such as pinchbeck or plated, so my guess is that it's either phosphor bronze, or fourteen-carat gold; anything higher in carat weight would be too soft to hold the embellishment, and a lower carat weight would be paler. Set with mother-of-pearl, and- either white sapphire, or zircon, most likely."

A shallow crease appeared between Phoenix's eyebrows. "What does Mason have to do with it?"

Amaryllis flicked her hair out of her face. "He arranged for them to be sent to me, upon his death," she said. "A posthumous gift. Ruby took them, the day that I left."

"Wait," Maya said, distantly aware of the horror seeping through her tone, "your sister stole the gift that your _dead father_ left to you?"

"She was of the opinion that I didn't deserve them," Amaryllis replied neutrally, addressing the ceiling.

Maya's stomach turned, like cake batter folded into itself by a spatula. _Come on, Nick_, she thought, swallowing the sick feeling. _You said they _didn't have great relationship- _that doesn't even begin to cover whatever _that_ is!_

Phoenix pressed onwards. "What were they doing in your dressing room?"

"I presume," Amaryllis said, slow and precise, "that Ruby bought them there."

"You didn't see her bring them in?"

"No. But she did have a bag with her," she said, "this obnoxiously oversized designer tote that you couldn't help but notice. It was a Birken, I think- one of those limited-production Hérmes handbags that cost ten thousand dollars apiece. I presume it was in there. It looked virtually empty, but I think you could have put a spare pair of platform heels and a copy of _Les Misérables_ in there and not have noticed the difference at a glance-"

"Wha- wait, hold on a second- _ten thousand dollars_ for a _handbag_?!" Phoenix choked out.

"Mm. _Conservative_ estimate." Amaryllis smiled, medicinal-bitter. "Desserts and designer handbags always were her greatest weaknesses. I mean, personally," she added, eyes narrowing with a gouging contempt that almost had Maya shrinking back, "I think that Birkens are a microcosm of the dystopian insanity of capitalism and the elitism, creative sterility, wastefulness and pervasive animal cruelty of the fashion industry, but _whatever_, I guess that ostrich-leather clutch with the diamond-encrusted clasps makes you look _classy_ at that exclusive cocktail party full of socialites that would gut you over a glass of Dom Perignon, _Ruby_."

Maya exchanged a disconcerted look with Phoenix.

_Oh-kay. Clearly these sisters have more issues than a magazine rack. I'm not sure we even want to get into that._

Wisely, Phoenix changed the subject. "You're saying you don't know how the murder weapon got to your dressing room?"

"I'll admit I was surprised when the police showed me the photos. I hadn't ever anticipated seeing those hairsticks again."

The line of Phoenix's mouth was set like concrete. "The police found your fingerprints on the murder weapon. Can you explain how they got there?"

"Ah, _that_…" She hummed softly. "Well. Possibly."

"_Possibly_?" Maya echoed, annoyance flaring. The dismissive attitude was wearing thin on her nerves, reminding her a little too strongly of the smart-mouthed, knowing smugness of a prosecutor before they bought down the axe. "How can you _not_ _know_ how your prints got on the murder weapon?"

Amaryllis ignored the outburst. "The hairstick was found still in the victim's body, wasn't it? And the fingerprints in question, they are in blood?"

"That's right." Phoenix said, flipping through the pages of his pocket notebook. "I haven't seen the full forensic report yet, but that's what the lead detective told me at the scene- found in the victim's body, bearing a single set of fingerprints from your right hand, in the victim's blood. Although, I have my suspicions that the prints aren't the clearest or most definitive."

"Ah, forgive me, I should have been more specific- you're missing the point." A wry spark was glinting at the corners of her eyes. "The _only_ fingerprints found were in blood. Correct?"

"I- yes?" He said with a slight frown. "Is that important?"

"_Detail_ is always relevant," Amaryllis said, arching a superior, faintly amused eyebrow, "and in this instance, _detail_ can only prove one narrow, limited fact: that I touched the murder weapon, once, _after_ the victim was already bleeding."

Phoenix's eyes widened.

"Then- of _course_. When the killer picked up the weapon- obviously, at the time, Ruby wouldn't have been bleeding yet. No- rather, she _couldn't_ have been bleeding! _She hadn't been stabbed_! So, if you _were_ the culprit, then there should be at least one set of non-bloody fingerprints on the murder weapon, from when you _first_ picked it up for the attack!"

"And there you have it; the finer detail makes for a neat little contradiction, practically wrapped in a satin bow. I imagine that the prosecution will find some convoluted, feasible excuse to explain it away, of course, but it is a grain of sand on the scale," Amaryllis added. "Regardless. Although I didn't share my theory with the police, knowing how little good it would do-" Grudgingly, Maya was inclined to agree; the police typically wanted a suspect's confession, not their testimony, "it did give me enough to guess at why my fingerprints are on the weapon."

"Oh? What's that?"

Amaryllis paused, twisting a coil of red hair around her finger, tight as silk rope against her skin.

"My memory of finding the body is- hazy. I've been trying to reconstruct what happened, but it's mostly educated guesswork. Then I had a thought. In times of extreme stress, people tend to revert to basic instinct. And, it is an instinct that if you see someone harmed, and can identify the source, you should remove it as soon as possible- like a hand on a burning stovetop, or a head underwater. Only, in this case, that probably would have done more harm than good."

"Wait," Maya said, shaking her head irritably as though dislodging water from her inner ears. "What do you mean, _more harm than good_? What _source of harm_?"

For the first time in several minutes, Amaryllis' gaze flitted towards Pearl. Her mouth tightened.

"Ah, how should I put this? When a foreign object," she said carefully, "is stuck inside a wound- a knife, a shard of glass, a bullet- then, removing it onsite is highly inadvisable, medically speaking. The object may be applying pressure on an internal wound and preventing the person from bleeding out- that is, acting as a stopper, of sorts. Or at the very least, removing it can cause additional internal damage. In the same vein as _it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing_, it's rarely the knife going _in_ that's the problem, but rather the knife being pulled _out_. I probably remembered that just in time."

It took Maya a moment, before the pieces fell into place.

"Oh," she said quietly. "So when you found your sister- your instinct was to try to save her. You saw the weapon stuck in her body, so you grabbed it-"

"But you realised at the last second that pulling it out might kill her," Phoenix finished, "if she was still alive. So you let go- leaving your fingerprints behind, and the hairstick still in her body."

Amaryllis turned aside serenely, fingering the collar of her grey t-shirt.

"_Instinct_," she reiterated.

The sensation that had been shivering on the edge of Maya's awareness suddenly thickened, pressing in like a shift in air pressure and the threat of a midsummer storm, cloying as heatstroke. She opened her Sight, unfurling it and focusing.

It coalesced, like condensation on glass- around Amaryllis.

Maya blinked. _Oh. Well, that's- huh._

Contrary to popular expectation, interactions between spirit mediums and the netherworld were both frequent and mostly tame. For Maya, it felt like brushing past invisible fronds and snags that most other people wouldn't notice- a flicker of sense-memory rising from a patch of sidewalk like heat-rise, or a mild curse clinging to a stranger's aura and clouding it like limescale in water. The plots of supernatural horror movies were unlikely to bleed into reality. The dead themselves were generally uninterested in meddling in the jurisdiction of the living- everyone died eventually, so any unfinished business wouldn't remain _unfinished_ forever- and the only spirits who could manifest without a medium acting as a conduit were either ridiculously, unreasonably determined, or had possessed strong spiritual power or psychic sensitivity in life.

Which, in Maya's opinion, was a good thing. Ghosts were, after all, just dead people, and a lot of people just- well, kind of _sucked_. Death rarely changed much.

Consequently, most interactions were about as interesting as Phoenix's paperwork, a dull necessity to be processed then promptly ignored to collect dust on a shelf.

Stumbling across something actually interesting- like whatever _this_ was- was a rarity.

With a soft huff, Maya relaxed her shoulders and squared her posture, focusing her spiritual energy as much as possible without the aid of a meditative pose- if nothing else, this would be an example of advanced exercise to mention to her instructors in Kurain, as proof that she was keeping up with her training regimen. She visualised her aura gathering, strengthening with each breath, honing keener like a knife against a whetstone; she condensed it into something more solid, extending its reach beyond her physical body as her vision brightened with the unseen- and lightly prodded at the presence around Amaryllis.

It didn't have glittering-cloud gossamer sensation of a recent blessing, or the cool, clean afterglow of purification, which would have been her first guesses. Instead, upon closer inspection, it was like a bubble of blown glass, resting atop Amaryllis' aura rather than attached to it, surrounding her in a cloak of ice, rigid and cold against the insistent poking. In fact, Maya could barely glimpse Amaryllis' aura through it where it thinned slightly- the energy around her _shone_, radiant as the sun behind ivory clouds, obscuring her from view, blending out her aura's signature-

Maya startled when she felt herself deflected by a sharp swipe.

Taken aback, her senses sizzling with the rebuff, Maya jabbed at the presence- and was struck back, like a blow from the flat of a sword.

Maya had the strange sensation that she was being _glared_ at.

She glared back, indignant, pouring out her full power in the spiritual equivalent of a cat raising its hackles and fluffing its fur.

_Hey! Who the hell do you think you are?!_

The presence stared her down sternly.

It- _was staring her down_.

Then it struck her.

_Oh_. Ohh_. So that's- _that's_ what you are. Okay. Um. Right._

Maya drew back, cautiously, projecting clear, loud, simple thoughts of apologetic explanation. The roiling clouds surging over the surface of Amaryllis' aura settled, ruffled feathers smoothing back into an opaque shield.

And then Maya looked away and tried not to think about it too much. It was better that way, with things of the spirit world that were powerful yet passive unless you provoked them.

"Amaryllis," Phoenix was saying, "there's something important I want to ask you about."

"As opposed to the _unimportant_ things you've asked me about?" She returned without missing a beat. "As I said, ask what you will. I am at my leisure."

Phoenix paused, and picked up his phone again. "I found this in your apartment."

He showed her the screen- a photo of a riding crop, swiping to the close-up of its monogrammed handle, and the cursive letters embossed into the leather grip.

Amaryllis gazed at the screen for a moment- then looked up at Phoenix with a slow blink.

"Were you snooping in my bedroom, Mr Wright?"

"Wha- no! Well, I mean, I-"

"_Mr Nick_!" Pearl exclaimed, scandalised, pulling back her sleeve with the clear intent of walloping Phoenix with one of her tiny fists. "Invading a lady's private space like that-!"

"N-no, I just-! _I heard something fall as I was leaving_!" Phoenix insisted, leaning out of Pearl's range, a panicked smile fixed on his face. "I thought it would be bad manners to just, you know, leave it there! So I picked it up!"

"How _gracious_," Amaryllis pronounced, plainly unconvinced.

Maya didn't blame her. She was certain that Phoenix was lying, considering how many times they had gone rummaging around in places that they technically shouldn't during an investigation. As his gleeful enabler more often than not, Maya was hardly in a position to judge Phoenix.

"Th-the monogram!" Phoenix blurted out. "I know someone with those initials- _FVK_. I recognise them."

Amaryllis' indifferent expression shifted by a few subtle degrees, like the sun striking through glass, edges warming and glinting with intrigue.

"Hm. Is that so?"

"Yes. Actually- they happen to be the same as the prosecutor for this trial. Someone who you have already claimed has a _personal_ connection to this case," he said, "even though you didn't explain the nature of that connection. You only talked about her professional motivations, and how this case relates to her career."

"Is there a question in there somewhere?" Amaryllis asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You want a question? Fine. How's this?" Phoenix set his phone down forcefully, eyes blazing. "_What is your connection to Franziska von Karma?_"

For a long moment, Amaryllis simply looked at Phoenix.

Slowly, her expression deepened into an inscrutable smile, sharp as the crescent moon- and almost playful.

"Age gaps are to navigate, in terms of mutual respect. But I have found that they are less of an issue in friendships," she mused, light as a sheet of gossamer caught in a gentle updraft, "where emotional maturity and intellect act as equalisers. For example." Her gaze drifted above their heads, resting her chin on the heel of her palm. "Ruby was four years older than Franziska, but _Little Miss Perfect_ was a child prodigy, and Ruby was an immature brat. So, then. Two daughters, each the scion of an illustrious family, heir to their fathers' legacies, of similar academic and emotional development, formerly residing in continental Europe- that certainly qualifies as a _connection_, doesn't it?"

Maya inhaled sharply. The inference was obvious, sending her spinning out of equilibrium.

"Wait- are you saying- Miss von Karma, and your sister- they were _friends_?"

Amaryllis flicked her head to the side, her smile shifting into a joyless, satisfied smirk.

"Our families knew each other. They attended the same school for _years_."

Maya's hands fisted on the tops of her thighs, nails scraping against the linen of her shorts, stiff with panic.

Regardless of whatever else they could have expected from the riding crop Phoenix had stumbled across, this was somehow the very _worst_ of worst case scenarios.

"It was the perfect equation," Amaryllis continued, entirely too calm for the live grenade she had just dropped at their feet, her unconcerned tone the verbal equivalent of twirling the pin around her index finger. "Two lonely, superior little girls, with the weight of the family name on their shoulders, and no one else worthy of their company but each other. Little Franziska was a fiercely loyal friend, in the way that lonely people always are. And that loyalty was returned fiftyfold."

"So," Phoenix cut in, "the riding crop was-?"

"You're familiar with _Fraulein _von Karma's bullwhip by now, aren't you?" Amaryllis' German accent was slipped on as easily as a tailored coat; it carried the same throat-deep shaping in the vowels that Maya had heard break through the seams of von Karma's neatly Americanised English, when her voice rose and pitched into a shout.

"_Unfortunately_, yeah," Phoenix muttered. Maya patted his arm sympathetically.

"When she was younger, she carried around that riding crop instead," Amaryllis explained. "Her bullwhip is a more recent acquisition- a gift, from her first and best friend. An early birthday present, or late congratulations on passing the bar exam, depending on your perspective. In exchange, little Franziska gave her friend her old riding crop, as a token of _eternal friendship_."

Maya watched her knuckles blanch in her lap. _First and best friend_. Franziska von Karma hadn't just _known_ Ruby Steele. She had been her first friend, her oldest friend, her _best_ friend, cut from the same razor-sleek silk. Maya could imagine the two of them standing together- copper-coral waves and steel-blue locks, shoulders conspiratorially close, talking quietly and laughing as a flash of _red_ fluttered unseen behind them.

Franziska von Karma didn't seem to be the _forgiving_ type. Her grudge against Phoenix for her father's defeat and arrest was evidence of that. If Phoenix drew von Karma's ire further, by defending the person accused of murdering her childhood best friend in cold blood- Maya winced at the thought.

Phoenix was still caught up in untangling the details. "If von Karma gave the riding crop to Ruby, how did you end up with it?"

"Well," Amaryllis said with a shrug, sweeping her fringe behind her ear, "Ruby took something that was rightfully _mine_…"

"Ah- of course. The hairsticks. _That's_ how you ended up with the riding crop," Phoenix concluded. "She took something important to you, so you returned the favour- maybe as a hostage?"

Amaryllis canted her head in answer, still not looking at Phoenix, even as he leaned forwards against the ledge in front of the window.

"Miss von Karma is the prosecutor on this case."

"I am well aware of that."

"She's prosecuting you for the murder of her oldest friend."

Amaryllis met Phoenix's gaze challengingly.

"And heaven help the defence attorney who gets in the way of Franziska von Karma on a _good_ day," she said darkly.

For a long moment, Phoenix simply looked at her, as though searching for something. Maya could almost hear the clockwork of his mind whirring, gears clicking.

"Let me represent you," Phoenix said decisively.

"You're delusional," Amaryllis answered evenly.

Maya huffed out a sigh. She hadn't expected anything different from Phoenix, even with Amaryllis being so _difficult_. As much as Amaryllis' attitude made her want to yell in frustration, Maya still didn't think that she was the killer. Her demeanour was somehow brittle, a little too overstated, like she was deliberately trying to nettle them and becoming steadily more excessive the longer it failed to get the results she was looking for.

There was an undercurrent of _not right_ to the case, as though they had barely scratched the surface, and any full picture they tried to make would be forcing together pieces that just didn't fit. _Why would someone peacefully estranged from their older sister for four years suddenly kill her? What's with Amaryllis? Why did Ruby come to see her at the theatre? What was so important that they had to talk in person?_

Phoenix had been right, when Pearl had asked why an innocent person would refuse help in proving it. No one knew how they would react to being accused of murder until they were placed in that situation. Maya had been calmer than she ever could have expected, last year. And two weeks ago- she had all but asked Phoenix to abandon her, she was so convinced that it was her fault.

"So far, the only reason you've given for rejecting my defence is that you don't want a loss to tarnish my win record," Phoenix checked, hands clenching as though he wanted to slam them down on the table, "is that fair?"

"That is the reason I stated- well recalled."

"Then that reason- that reservation of yours?" Phoenix straightened, hardening. "It only applies if I _lose_."

And just like that, like a stormy sea dissolving into calm, _the attorney_ rose to the surface of his skin- the rumpled-soft comfort of _Nick_ yielding to the sharp-edged, pressed-suit, justice-driven _Phoenix Wright_. It was easy to forget that he could be a little scary sometimes, in a good way, baring his teeth in a smile as he put his own neck on the chopping block and talked the axe out of falling- a little less bluster and bravado, a little more cliff-sheer determination. Even Maya, who glimpsed the workings of Phoenix's bluffs more often than anyone else, felt the effect. The only thing she could compare it to was the breath being swept out of her by a sharp plummet on a rollercoaster, all pure power and momentum, stomach swooping and adrenaline flooding her bloodstream until she felt like she could punch through concrete.

But, traitorously, Maya knew that Amaryllis was right. Phoenix might lose.

But he had to believe that he could win, or it was already all over.

Amaryllis' face was empty for a long moment.

Then her expression cracked open like a bone, and she started laughing.

Her head dipped, red hair falling forwards to shadow her face, shoulders trembling, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. The sound was clear and sparkling and gelid and _sharp_ as a waterfall of glass, shattering down.

Maya gaped in disbelief, before a deep anger welled up like magma, pressing at her skin and threatening to erupt, ashes in her mouth.

Straightening, Amaryllis shook her tresses back over her shoulders, tilting her chin up and gazing at Phoenix.

"You are going to _lose_." She told them, voice still sparkling with remnants of cold mirth, like stardust. "You _ruined_ Little Miss Perfect's five-year flawless record. She's already out for blood- and redemption. And now, _now_ you decide to take _this_ case in particular, when you _know_ that she has a personal connection to it? By the stars, you are going to be _eviscerated_. Ah, but maybe that's the point. I can only imagine the pressure of maintaining a winning streak like yours, not even a year into practicing law." Her eyes glinted through the fan of her lashes. "Maybe you're looking forward to that first loss, and willingly flying into the sun. I suppose every dying comet looks like a blaze of glory from a distance."

"We'll see if it's my first loss," Phoenix replied, refusing to rise to the bait.

Amaryllis smiled. There was nothing kind in it. Instead, it looked like she wanted to bite him just to see how he tasted.

"You will regret this."

Maya shivered at her cadence- a calm statement of fact and an ominous promise- but she barely had any time to react before Amaryllis was speaking again.

"But that's a matter for tomorrow's consideration. I seem to no longer have a choice in this- there simply isn't enough time."

"Enough time…?"

"To engineer an alternative route," Amaryllis clarified. "Congratulations, Sir Icarus. If you're that insistent on building your own pyre, there's a form you may need. It will authorise you to request documents from the British Embassy on my behalf, ones that the equivalent US authorities might not have immediate access to. I strongly advise that you fetch a copy from the visitor's desk and bring it here for me to sign, in case my formal letter of request isn't enough."

Phoenix perked, flickering into brightness like a lightbulb warming in the socket. "Does this mean- that you're _accepting_?"

"You may want to hurry," Amaryllis said simply, "if you want to have the paperwork filed and processed in time."

A smile exploded across his face.

"Thank you. Okay! Then- I'll be right back!"

The redhead hummed disinterestedly as Phoenix shot out of his seat, giving a quick nod to Maya, and strode out of the door is a brisk half-jog. Maya let herself breathe through the knot behind her ribs. That was one victory, at least, and the first link in the chain.

Maya glanced at Amaryllis through the glass. Her eyes- the stark contrast of her irises didn't become any less jarring with repeated exposure- were hard, fixed on the point of Phoenix's departure.

"Um."

Her gaze flicked to Maya.

Maya winced at the ungainly bluntness of her voice in the quiet, but decided that the silence had been worse.

"Thank you," she said, smiling slightly, tentative as new blossoms in spring, "really, for letting Nick defend you. I don't know what you've heard, but he's an amazing lawyer. I- I get that it might not have been easy, but thank you for trusting him. He won't let you down. It means a lot that you changed your mind."

Amaryllis mirrored Maya's expression- but it was like a reflection in broken glass, subtly distorted into a sickle.

"I'm not doing this for him. Nor is he doing this for me- but you're aware of that."

"What-? No, no, Nick's not like that," Maya reassured her with a nervous little laugh. "Trust me, he's not in it for money, or glory, or anything, even if he might seem all overconfident and-"

"He took my case because _you asked him to_." Amaryllis stated, so ruthlessly direct that Maya felt her centre of balance lurch sharply, leaving her motion-sick. "No other reason. He either adores you beyond all reason-" Maya felt her face flood with heat, opening her mouth to refute it, "or he feels indebted, or he trusts you. My personal bet would be on a blend of all of the above. But, whatever the reason, you might want to think about it carefully."

"About- what?"

"Whether you truly want your Icarus to defend me." Amaryllis stared her down. "If you care about him at all, you'll absolve him of any obligation to this case."

Maya set her jaw. "No," she said firmly, "if I _trust_ him, then I won't. I believe in Nick. I believe in his abilities. And I don't think you're guilty."

"Is that projection I hear?" Amaryllis riposted, quick and smooth as a ballerina's pirouette as it cracked its heel against a skull on the downturn. "Just because you loved your sister doesn't make the same true of me."

"You don't need to have _loved_ her," Maya snapped back, temper crackling under her skin like the ground splitting above an earthquake, "you just need to have not _killed_ her."

Amaryllis gave a short, bright laugh. It was somehow more genuine than her last- startled out of her like a flutter and metallic flash of butterfly wings- with the odd brittleness and muted sweetness of cold-crystallised honey on the verge of melting back to liquid gold.

"My goodness," she said through a cool, perfect smile, folding her arms, "_that _was surprisingly cynical- I'm impressed. But what about this: even if I am innocent, even if he proves it, it may be a pyrrhic victory. Have you considered that? Once the currents drag him beneath the surface, he won't be able to escape. Are you willing condemn him to that?"

The chill of the air conditioning suddenly seemed arctic, sluicing down her back and solidifying into a glaze of ice. "What are you talking about?" Maya asked, closed fists trembling.

"I suppose you will find out tomorrow, at the courthouse- unless you can persuade him otherwise."

"Wait," Maya heard her own voice rising like a panicked bird in her throat, batting its wings against her clavicle, "wait, what are you-"

"What family doesn't have its secrets?" Amaryllis cut her off, insolently calm, gaze steady, her lunar-blue eye piercing and clear, its counterpart molten brown and deep as volcanic earth after rainfall.

Maya ripped in a sharp breath- and the door behind her opened, Phoenix re-entering the room.

There wasn't the opportunity to ask anything else.

* * *

_July 8, 2017, 8:13PM  
Wright and Co. Law Offices_

Daylight was beginning to wane and falter outside the windows, the late-setting sun casting the office into a deep burnt-gold filter, like charred wood cooling and smoking into ash in a brass brazier, shadows smoking into the haze of incense. Maya sat up straight and arched her back, stretching the tense muscles like stale bubblegum, wincing as she felt something crackle like tiny bubblewrap in the vertebrae at the back of her neck. _That can't be healthy, right?_

Bent over his desk, blazer stripped and sleeves rolled up, Phoenix glanced up from the thick ream of documents he was sifting through.

"Drink?" He suggested, offering a tired smile.

"Anything cold," Maya answered on a gusty sigh, slumping back against the leather sofa, her head heavy and thick as a humid day. Phoenix rose to his feet, grimacing as his legs briefly refused to cooperate with the sudden demand for activity, and headed into the office kitchen.

It had been a long afternoon. As a rule, Maya and Phoenix split pre-trial paperwork equally, unless it was something that required legal expertise to decipher; this time, however, Phoenix had volunteered to take most of the police documents they had acquired from Gumshoe at the station while Maya ran through the footage from the surveillance camera, writing up a transcript with time-stamps for quick reference. The task was far from difficult, just made tedious by the monotony, and Maya was aware that she got the sweeter half of the deal.

Meanwhile, Phoenix was occupied with scouring through the arrest report and interrogation notes- judging by the way Phoenix kept exhaling sharply, the strong line of his jaw shifting as he gritted his teeth, there were as few details as ever within the swathes of vague phrasing and suspiciously redacted content- and skimming over Amaryllis' phone records for the past twelve months. The contents of her cell had been digitally cloned by the forensics department for evidence preservation, so Gumshoe had been able to persuade the tech team to allow them, grudgingly, fifteen minutes with the device.

The smartphone was an elegant, slim model on the razor-edge of the latest technology, the handset probably only a few months old, smoulder-red and stylish in the way that expensive things were without being more of a fashion statement than a functional appliance. Maya thought that it would have suited its owner perfectly, if not for the phone charms hanging from its frame.

Attached to a single nylon loop were two trinkets. The first was a black Fender guitar plectrum, a tiny hole bored in the top to thread it onto the clasp- which looked like it was repurposed from a broken necklace- the plastic nicked at the edges with use. Phoenix had told her about the guitars in Amaryllis' bedroom, and the lyric book on her coffee table, so Maya supposed she could understand it- an edge of rock and roll seemed align within the constellation of Amaryllis' identity, like adding a dash of seasalt to melted chocolate.

It was the other one that Maya found bizarre. Clinking against the plectrum was a metal charm in the shape of a heavy curlicue initial _A_, studded with diamante gems, the cheap metal tarnished into oxidised black and pink. It was the kind of cheap, tacky accessory Maya would expect from a blonde, rich Valley girl in an early noughties high school movie- and therefore seemed utterly incongruous for Amaryllis, who exuded understated class like body-warmed Parisian perfume.

The detail had been distracting enough that Maya almost missed Phoenix confirming several details of Amaryllis' story. There were no calls or messages between Amaryllis and Ruby- listed in Amaryllis' contacts as _DNA_, a label so unapologetically frigid that it made Maya shiver in the summer heat- prior to May. The first phone call had lasted less than thirty seconds, and had been followed by a persistent chain of missed calls over the next few months, once a day, every day, always hovering around the same time in the evening with a shocking consistency, and always ignored. Amaryllis had finally picked up on the nineteenth of June, cutting it off after eight seconds; the second call that day, immediately afterwards, lasted a few minutes. There was a smattering of sparse texts afterwards, of Ruby announcing her arrival in LA a few days ago, then sending the name of her hotel and room number with painfully forced gaiety, and Amaryllis tersely confirming that she would send the tickets there.

There was one more text, from the night of the murder, sent just after intermission began but undelivered due to poor cell signal backstage.

| _Coming to see you now. You were beautiful up there._

The call Amaryllis made before curtains up was also recorded, made at 7:14PM and lasting until 7:47PM, to a contact listed as _Chéri_. The profile photo was a young man around Amaryllis' age, his tan rich against the satin-sheen platinum blond hair that fell across his eyes and framed his face, a relaxed grin directed at the camera and emphasising his long handsome features, the strong curve of his jaw and the Pacific-blue glitter of his irises. Maya and Phoenix had riddled over his significance and gossiped about possibilities until the clock ran down. Maya's bet was _boyfriend_, based on the contact name; Phoenix guessed _cousin_ or _close friend_, based purely on the similarity in their brand of _cool_.

Once they returned to the office, Phoenix had started to dredge through the full printed activity logs, to ensure there were no nasty surprises from the prosecution. Meanwhile, Maya had sat down with Phoenix's laptop with the high-resolution, full-colour security footage running on double speed, tracking every movement in and out of the corridor. With Phoenix's help, she had identified two-thirds of the individuals who passed by the lens: Amaryllis, whose apparent absence she had puzzled over until Phoenix reminded her of the ice-blonde wig that was part of her costume; Ruby, flame-touched curls skimming the shoulders of her chic white jacket, oversized leather bag in hand and brushing against the delicate pastel skirts of her dress; a pink-haired woman whose vigorous stride blurred her into a comet of buttercup and cream, who Phoenix quickly named as the costume designer, Cherry Pye; and a flaxen-blond boy initially appearing in jeans, a forest-green t-shirt and sneakers that could only be the lead male actor, Jamie Arany.

There were two more women- a caramel-blonde, thick curls curtaining her shoulders like a cloak, and a brunette with a feathery flipped bob. One had to be the secondary female lead, but the other was an unknown. Maya had logged every action that the camera caught in its field of vision, which was surprisingly little, grit gathering under her eyelids the longer she stared at the screen.

Maya startled upright as something cold nudged against her temple, eyes snapping open. She hadn't even realised she was drifting off.

"Sorry," Phoenix said, "tired?"

"A little." Maya stifled a yawn against her fingers, reaching up to take the chilled glass from him with a smile. "Late night and early start, you know? Guess it's creeping up on me."

"We should probably wrap it up for today anyway. I don't think I'm getting anything else out of the phone records," he said, circling around the sofa to set a glass of orange juice on the coffee table by Pearl, whose attention was dedicated to a documentary playing on the wall-mounted office television. "Here you go, Pearls."

She turned her face up towards him. "Thank you, Mr Nick! Are you and Mystic Maya almost finished with work?"

"I'm all done with the security footage," Maya announced, sipping at her lemon-lime soda, bubbles sparking on the roof of her mouth. In a display of sheer laziness, she kicked one leg up and closed the laptop with her heel. "Nick?"

"I think so." He stood over his desk, shuffling through a few loose papers half-heartedly. "I haven't found anything new, just evidence that Amaryllis has been telling the truth- which is good, I guess."

Pearl abruptly straightened, swivelling in her seat to look at Phoenix, intense and warm-spice sweet as anise. "Mr Nick. I have to say something important."

Phoenix halted, glancing up at Pearl's solemnity, and nodded.

"Sure. What is it, Pearls? It doesn't always have to be important or serious for us to listen, you know," he reminded her.

Pearl gave a soft, shy smile. "I-I know. But this _is_ important. It's about that lady. The one you're going to defend." She shifted onto her knees, chin propped against the back of the couch. "She seems a little mean, and prickly, but- I think she's good. I don't think she hurt anyone."

The corner of Phoenix's mouth pulled up, his upper body rising with the motion. "You think so too, huh?"

"Yes!" Pearl said with earnest confidence. "I sensed something about her when I saw her."

"Really? What's that?"

_Cute, _Maya thought to herself, watching their exchange, hiding her growing smile behind the rim of her glass. Somehow, in the time that Maya had been confined to the detention centre and Phoenix had been fighting to get her out, he and Pearl had formed a trusting, ridiculously sweet rapport.

Pearl paused and sat back, mouth pursed in thought, fingers laced loosely in her lap. "Mr Nick, how much do you know about the spiritual services offered by Kurain Village?"

"What? Oh- well, uh, not too much," Phoenix faltered for a moment, visibly thrown by the question. "Enough to know that spirit channellings are actually relatively rare. Kurain mostly offers other services, like séances- although, from what Maya tells me, those are a little weaker than full spirit channellings, and less reliable for calling on a specific individual or getting clear answers. It acts more like a- like a general invitation to the dead?" He glanced at Maya in askance, and she nodded emphatically at the analogy; the way she had originally explained it to Phoenix was that séances were like public internet forums, while spirit channelling was closer to direct messaging. "The medium, um- opens up a channel for spirits to speak through. Certain spirits might show, while others don't. There's also spiritual cleansings, right? Purification rituals to get rid of bad energy, and guided meditation sessions to a person better connect with, uh, the _Beyond_."

"That's right," Pearl said with a prim bob of her head. "The Fey clan is remarkable for our sensitivity to the spirit world, resulting in our ability to call forth departed spirits and allow them to possess the medium's body, so that they may interact with the living realm. But our strong spiritual power isn't limited to interacting with the dead. There are a lot of other ways in which we are more sensitive to the spirit plane than most." Her formal tone melted away to a bright sprig of enthusiasm. "Like aura-reading!"

"Auras? That's like a person's spiritual essence, right?"

"Mm, that's- not quite-? It's more like- um, well…" Pearl deflated, nibbling on her thumbnail uncertainly. "Um. Mystic Maya? How would you explain it?"

"Huh? Oh. Um." Maya, caught off guard, tapped at her earlobe in thought. "Well- it's a- a _projection_ of spiritual energy, I guess you could say? Like- okay, if a person's soul is a fire, then their aura is like the heat coming off it. Does that make sense? You reach out to it, and feel the warmth, and that tells you a bit about what the fire is like, even if you're not touching the fire directly."

"So, an aura isn't a person's _soul_," Phoenix extrapolated, "but, something that _results_ from their soul? Like an echo of a sound."

"Yes, exactly!" Pearl brightened. "Everyone has an aura. It sometimes leaves traces behind, a unique residual energy. That's why personal items belonging to the dead are often useful for channelling. Some acolytes in Kurain train specifically in this branch of spiritual perception."

"Alright," Phoenix said slowly, leaning back against the edge of the desk. "So, what you sensed- I'm guessing it has to do with Amaryllis' aura."

"Yes. Most disciples of the Kurain Channelling Technique can sense auras," she explained. "If we focus, we can perceive when a person's aura is clouded with inner turmoil, or has negative energy attached to it. Some malicious spirits will feed off a person's aura, and need to be banished. But the lady's aura- there was something there. Something odd," Pearl mused. "It felt a bit like a shield around her. It's attached to her aura, and it's not a parasitic spirit, but it's not a blessing either. It felt like it was- _thinking_, choosing to be there. If I had to guess," her slate-grey eyes gleamed, clear as glass, "it felt like protection from beyond the grave."

Phoenix straightened sharply. "From beyond the grave- do you mean- her sister-?"

Pearl shook her head.

"I don't think so, Mr Nick. Her death is too recent. It's tricky for the recently deceased to return so soon, at least without a powerful medium to help them. But there's _something_ protecting her, and I just think-" Pearl hesitated, nipping at her thumb with her teeth. "I was watching, while you were talking to her. I saw underneath the presence shielding her, just for a moment, and- well, spiritual sensitivity is a bit like a door. If you leave it closed for too long, the hinges get rusty, and it's hard to open that door again. But the same thing happens if you leave it open. It rusts that way, and it's hard to close the door against bad spirits you don't want to let in. That's why spirit mediums have to practice opening and closing themselves off to the spirit plane, so that they can learn to control it. When I glimpsed part of the lady's aura, underneath the protection- she was really, _really_ open to the spiritual plane. And I- I just think that- for someone to be protected _that_ fiercely- and to be so open to the spirit world, so much that it's a little dangerous- I just can't believe anyone like that could _really_ be bad."

Characteristic of a prodigy whose talents outstripped most of their clan combined, Pearl had a point, even if her conclusion was simplified and rose-tinted though a lens of naivety. Factually, all of Pearl's observations were accurate.

There was no denying that Amaryllis had an unusually strong connection to the spirit plane, whether she was conscious of it or not. For something- or, more correctly, some_thing_ that was once some_one_\- to be both using Amaryllis as a conduit to access the realm of the living and actively manifesting in order to protect her, there was no other possibility. So, that was true.

It was also true that those with high spiritual sensitivity tended to be prepossessed to an ambiguous kind of emotional clarity, mental focus and inner peace- a contradictory cocktail of heart-rooted empathy and tranquillity verging on apathy, forming an equilibrium that both reacted and didn't; it did not _speak_, it _listened_, as Maya's instructors were so fond of reminding her, whatever that meant.

And it was true that, for someone like Amaryllis to be so hyper-receptive, presumably without any formal training, there was a decent chance that her default mindset slanted towards that balanced state of being.

And, of course, it was true that _murder_ and the motivating feelings behind it didn't really fit that kind of enlightened mode of thinking.

Overall, it made things very weird if Amaryllis _was_ guilty. It didn't make it impossible, but it did make it feel unlikely.

But Maya's view were still much less defined and far more complicated than Pearl's, gestating as she had stared dully at the security footage during lulls in action. _Highly sensitive to spirits_ and _protected by something _did not equal _good, innocent, not a murderer_. And there were questions unasked and details obscured that branched off from the core of _facts_ and _evidence_, like paths that might lead to nowhere or everywhere.

When Pearl talked of Amaryllis' _openness _to the point of _danger_, Maya couldn't compare it to a door. Instead, she thought of exposed nerves and a fresh wound packed with gauze, emotion-rich energy seeping from a breach like an oil spill, practically a beacon that shrieked with sirens and flashing neon lights to any malevolent or opportunistic spirit within a mile radius. Maya was willing to bet that Amaryllis' spiritual sensitivity was inherent, but that her current _dangerous_ level was recent. Something in her had been ripped open, leaving her vulnerable, less like an unlatched door and more like one ripped off its hinges.

The question of its cause brimmed with possibility; of whether it was grief or guilt, the trauma of committing murder or of stumbling upon the aftermath, or something entirely unrelated to the case.

It was impossible to know. It was impossible to know whether it even _mattered_. Reading auras wasn't like reading minds, as even the most repulsive aura could indicate that the person was a victim, rather than a perpetrator. Amaryllis could be good or bad, guilty or innocent, or utterly heartless and reprehensible but also not the murderer in _this_ specific case.

_You don't need to have _loved_ her_, Maya had said, _you just need to have not _killed_ her._

It made her head hurt to think about it, like a riddle missing half of the information.

She didn't _think_ that Amaryllis had murdered her sister. But truthfully, Maya believed that Amaryllis was _capable_ of it. She could have.

And that was a dangerous, insidious thought. Because Maya had asked Phoenix to take the case, and Phoenix had agreed, and if Amaryllis was _guilty_-

_If you care about him at all, you'll absolve him of any obligation to this case._

Maya swallowed, feeling the glass in her hands almost began to creak and bend perilously under her grip. _Was she warning me? Because Phoenix wouldn't listen earlier? What could be so bad that-_

"Maya?"

She startled, finding Phoenix looking at her, his eyes distant and doubtful, their colour obscured in the shifting light.

"What do you think?"

Maya hesitated.

_Even if I am innocent, even if he proves it, it may be a pyrrhic victory. Are you willing condemn him to that?_

If Amaryllis was found guilty, whatever consequences befell Phoenix would forever be on Maya's conscience. Even if Amaryllis was innocent of the crime of which she was accused, but was revealed to have committed a host of other sins through the course of the trial- Phoenix may never forgive himself for helping a monster walk free.

The choking, unresolved doubt rested heavy behind Maya's eyes and in her throat, like unshed tears, a dam waiting to burst.

But Maya wasn't the only one whose opinions mattered. Phoenix, independently of anything Maya had said or done or asked for, believed that Amaryllis was innocent. And it wasn't, she thought bitterly, as though her own judgement could be worth overmuch. She hadn't even realised that her own aunt was arranging for her execution.

The truth, whatever it was, seemed like a distant and unknowable thing that was costumed as a plausible lie. It seemed impossible to strip it back the layers of Amaryllis' opacity and the case's blank spaces to find it.

_What family doesn't have its secrets?_

But- _but_\- as many could attest, Phoenix Wright possessed an unfaltering determination- one that was easily mistaken for an interesting form of insanity, considering how often it ran in the opposite direction to self-preservation and common sense. He had faced prosecuting gods with crushing reputations and forty-year winning streaks, held his nerve, and won. He had faced down the daughter of one of the aforementioned prosecutors, and her bullwhip, in the very same court of law. He had defended himself from a murder accusation and uncovered his mentor's killer, and saved one of his closest childhood friends from a murder charge twice in the same day.

He could do this. If anyone could do it, it was him.

"I think she's innocent too," Maya said with a confident smile, her mouth full of battery acid and fear, and hoped that she wouldn't regret it.

* * *

**BONUS:  
****COURT RECORD, DAY 1 – INVESTIGATION [END]**

**EVIDENCE**

Attorney's Badge  
Type: Other  
One of my possessions.  
_It's my all-important badge. It shows that I am a defence attorney._

[-]

Amaryllis' Necklace  
Type: Other  
Retrieved from Amaryllis.  
_Belongs to my client. The pendant is in the shape of a red lily with a golden arrow piercing through it, symbolising the myth behind Amaryllis' name. For some reason, she lied about who gave it to her._

[-]

Formal Letter of Request  
Type: Documents  
Received from Amaryllis.  
_Document proving Amaryllis' request for a defence. It's phrased like an official legal document._

[Details]

_8 July, 2017  
__Los Angeles, LA County, California  
__United States of America_

_To whom it may concern,_

_I, Jaime Amaryllis Steele (undersigned), do hereby tender my formal letter of request engaging the services of defence attorney Phoenix Wright (badge number 26381) as my legal representative in all matters pertaining to the criminal case of The People versus Jaime Amaryllis Steele on one count of murder in the first degree, trial scheduled to commence on the ninth of July, 2017, at the Los Angeles District Courthouse, CA. These permissions extend to any authorised associates of the Wright and Company Law Offices, of Los Angeles, LA County, CA._

_The veracity of this document and its signature can be corroborated by myself, orally; by comparison to the signature on two (2) legal identification documents (valid UK Passport, last renewed July 2014; valid US Passport, last renewed December 2016); and by the witness accounts of the two security guards present at the Los Angeles Downtown Detention Centre, CA, who were on duty in the visitor's room between 9AM and 10AM on the morning of the eighth of July, 2017._

_Signed,  
__JA Steele_

[-]

Amaryllis' Memo  
Type: Documents  
Received from Amaryllis.  
_A request from my client. It contains her address and instructions to retrieve a specific item._

[Details]

_If you're visiting the crime scene- best to turn a cherry from sour to sweet:  
__Santa Monica, Olympus Tower, Apartment 1221  
__Door code – 121001#  
__Lower kitchen cupboard, left side of the sink- two bags (Summerton Farm Gourmet Gerbil Treats)  
__To be delivered to Cherry Pye, costume designer, likely the Eclipse: late twenties, blush-pink pixie cut, yellow playsuit with dark buttons, white blouse, red stockings. Probably threatening someone with fabric shears_

[-]

Gerbil Treats  
Type: Other  
Retrieved from Amaryllis' apartment.  
_Two small bags of gourmet gerbil treats, made from roasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and dried strawberries. To be delivered to Cherry Pye._

[-]

Riding Crop  
Type: Other  
Retrieved from Amaryllis' apartment.  
[1] _A riding crop made from fine leather. There are a set of initials monogrammed into the handle- FVK.  
_[2] _A riding crop made from fine leather. It once belonged to Franziska von Karma, who gave it to Ruby Steele as a gift. Amaryllis stole it years ago out of revenge._

[-]

Playbill  
Type: Other  
Retrieved from the Eclipse Theatre.  
_Programme for the night of the murder (7 July, 2017). Details the synopsis and main cast for the musical _Heartstrings_. Act I was from 8:00PM-9:00PM. Intermission was from 9:00PM-9:30PM. Act II was from 9:30PM-11PM. Main actors are listed as Jaime Steele (Lorelei, protagonist), Jamie Arany (Linus, deuterogamist), and Gloria Siquer (Cecily, tritagonist)._

[-]

Crime Scene Photo  
Type: Photographs  
Received from Detective Gumshoe.  
_A photo of the crime scene. The victim has visibly been stabbed multiple times. The scene is quite brutal._

[-]

Hairstick  
Type: Weapons  
Submitted as evidence by Detective Gumshoe.  
_The murder weapon. An elegant gold hairstick with a sharp point, about as long as a chopstick. The blunt end is decorated with white enamel blossoms, and there is a short gold chain hanging from the end. Covered in the victim's blood, and bears a single set of bloody fingerprint from Amaryllis' right hand. No other prints were found._

[-]

Hairstick Case  
Type: Evidence  
Submitted as evidence by Detective Gumshoe.  
[1] _A decorative carved cherrywood case. It has some weight to it. Contains a single hairstick. Bears only the victim's fingerprints.  
_[2] _A decorative carved cherrywood case. It has some weight to it. A presentation box for a set of hairsticks, intended as a gift to Amaryllis from her father after his death. Bears only the victim's fingerprints._

[-]

Amaryllis' Script  
Type: Other  
Retrieved from Amaryllis' dressing room.  
_Amaryllis' copy of the script for the musical. Heavily notated and amended in pencil, especially the music sections. There are barely any scenes where she's offstage, and they're marked with notes reading _costume change_ or _prop retrieval _in the margins._

[-]

Amaryllis' Phone  
Type: Evidence  
Submitted as evidence by Detective Gumshoe.  
_Belongs to my client. The last call was made at 7:14PM on the day of the murder, and lasted until 7:47PM. The last message received was from the victim, but was never opened due to poor cell reception._

[-]

Security Camera Data  
Type: Evidence  
Submitted as evidence by Detective Gumshoe.  
_Data from the security camera at the entrance of the restricted backstage area of the Eclipse._

[Details]

_7:12PM: Amaryllis is captured leaving the backstage area, already in costume. She is wearing her necklace.  
__7:38PM: Ruby is captured entering the backstage area.  
__7:45PM: Ruby is captured leaving the backstage area. Brunette[?] is captured entering the backstage area.  
__7:49PM: Amaryllis is captured entering the backstage area. The zipper on her costume is gold.  
__7:55PM: The main cast and two crewmembers are captured leaving the backstage area._

_8:52PM: Jamie is captured returning to the backstage area. He has removed his costume's coat, and the lining is sapphire blue.  
__8:58PM: Cherry is captured returning to the backstage area.  
__9:01PM: Amaryllis, Blondie[?] and Brunette[?] are captured returning to the backstage area.  
__9:05PM: Ruby is captured entering the backstage area.  
__9:27PM: Blondie[?] and Brunette[?] are captured leaving the backstage area.  
__9:28PM: Amaryllis is captured leaving the backstage area.  
__9:30PM: Cherry is captured leaving the backstage area.  
__9:36PM: Jamie is captured leaving the backstage area. He is carrying a large bag, and the lining of his costume's coat is emerald green._

_11:06PM: Amaryllis, Jamie, Blondie[?] and Brunette[?] are captured entering the backstage area._

[-]

**PROFILES**

Maya Fey  
Age: 18  
Height: 5'1"  
_My assistant and a disciple of the Kurain tradition of spirit channelling. Her older sister Mia was my mentor and boss. She chose this case for our office._

[-]

Pearl Fey  
Age: 8  
Height: 4'1"  
_Maya's cousin. A channelling prodigy with intense power. Also the youngest spirit medium of Kurain Village. Her mother Morgan was arrested two weeks ago for trying to frame Maya for murder._

[-]

Amaryllis Steele  
Age: 16  
Height: 5'8"  
[1] _The defendant of this case, accused of murdering her older sister. The lead in a stage musical. A member of British aristocracy. She seems to know me by reputation.  
_[2] _My client. Accused of murdering her sister. The lead in a stage musical. A member of British aristocracy. She seems to know me by reputation._

[-]

Ruby Steele  
Age: 23  
Height: 5'3"  
_The victim, and Amaryllis' estranged sister. A British countess who inherited the title four years ago. Came to America to tell Amaryllis something important._

[-]

Mason Steele  
Age: 42 (deceased)  
Height: 5'10"  
_Amaryllis and Ruby's father. A British earl, and an architect who worked in continental Europe. He was killed four years ago, marking the final break between his daughters._

[-]

Dick Gumshoe  
Age: 31  
Height: 6'0"  
_Detective at the local precinct. In charge of the initial investigation. Despite appearances, he has become a friend of mine over the past year._

[-]

Franziska von Karma  
Age: 18  
Height: 5'3"  
_A prosecutor in Germany since age thirteen, she has come to America to beat me in court. Has some mysterious personal connection to the Steele family._

[-]

Cherry Pye  
Age: 29  
Height: 5'0"  
_The head costumer for the musical. Contradictorily bad-tempered and laid-back. Meticulous in her craft, and very protective of her work._


End file.
